(8-10-06) Blazing full moon and suckers’ bear market rally by the lunatic frauds on wall street to suck the suckers in; ie., dow up 48 points - the "miracle" of computerized manipulated trades, all very commissionable on an amazingly heavy volume of 4.20 billion shares, including Nasdaq. What Changed? Nothing. Something that wasn’t discounted by the market didn’t occur.

“AP - The ink barely dry on second-quarter results showing fuller planes and profits some hadn't seen in years, airlines are again being tested -- this time by a foiled terror plot that is sure to make passengers uneasy about flying.” At best, the foregoing is neutral, and at worst a clear negative for the market. Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, writes,” U.S. Trade Deficit Down 0.3 Pct. in June. U.S. Trade Deficit Falls 0.3 Percent in June to $64.8B, Offsetting Jump in Chinese Imports. WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's trade deficit showed a slight improvement as strong global growth pushed U.S. exports to a record level. That helped offset a surge in Chinese imports and record crude oil prices.The deficit declined 0.3 percent in June, compared with May, dropping to $64.8 billion, still the fifth largest imbalance on record, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The deficit is running at an annual rate of $768 billion through the first six months of this year, putting the country on track to see a fifth straight record imbalance. Last year's deficit was $716.7 billion”. Prior considerations remain apposite in this clearly overvalued market. According to AP on 8-9-06 - “Investors concerned about erratic oil prices and a slowing economy sent stocks lower Wednesday despite strong earnings from Cisco Systems Inc. and the Federal Reserve's pause in raising interest rates.” The frauds on wall street feel compelled to continue their tradition/superstition/fraud tactic of buying on the rumor and selling on the news(fact) of the Fed’s temporary pause in rate hikes. You see, the facts/news do not rationally warrant holding dollar based securities/stocks but provide a means to scam the stupid money, to the benefit of the wall street frauds/scammers and smart money. Oil prices down $2 on “news” of non-event…..riiiiight! Previously: “Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 4 cents to settle at $76.35 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rising as high as $77.44 -- less than a dollar away from its trading record of $78.40 reached July 14”, and as well, Yahoo previously commented: “Friday was a wild day on Wall Street with early gains fueled by an encouraging July jobs report being wiped away as the return of concern tied to an economic slowdown outweighed the potential of a pause in tightening at Tuesday's Fed meeting. Before the bell, nonfarm payrolls rose a less than expected 113,000 and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, suggesting the labor market is losing steam and reinforcing the view that the economy is on track for a soft landing. To wit, fed funds futures were pricing in a 44% chance.....”, to which I responded, “Wild..... I’ll give you wild: GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices. don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the ‘alice-in-wonderland’ lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices now above $76; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market).” The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

BP: Pipeline Closing May Last for Months (8-7-06)AP -

BP said Monday it will replace 16 miles of pipeline from its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field and production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies.

Fed's Bernanke still sees inflation risks, but of course inasmuch as the worthless dollar is worth less by the day, with higher interest rates the only way to combat same in light of intransigent structural economic realities

(8-9-06) Stocks drop still only modestly relative to reality as the wall street fraud continues, in light of the blazing full moon and the lunatic frauds on wall street try to keep the suckers sucked in; ie., as the Dow Jones industrial average fell 97.41, Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 5.53, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped .57.
According to AP - “Investors concerned about erratic oil prices and a slowing economy sent stocks lower Wednesday despite strong earnings from Cisco Systems Inc. and the Federal Reserve's pause in raising interest rates.” The frauds on wall street feel compelled to continue their tradition/superstition/fraud tactic of buying on the rumor and selling on the news(fact) of the Fed’s temporary pause in rate hikes. You see, the facts/news do not rationally warrant holding dollar based securities/stocks but provide a means to scam the stupid money, to the benefit of the wall street frauds/scammers and smart money. “Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 4 cents to settle at $76.35 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rising as high as $77.44 -- less than a dollar away from its trading record of $78.40 reached July 14”, and as well, Yahoo previously commented: “Friday was a wild day on Wall Street with early gains fueled by an encouraging July jobs report being wiped away as the return of concern tied to an economic slowdown outweighed the potential of a pause in tightening at Tuesday's Fed meeting. Before the bell, nonfarm payrolls rose a less than expected 113,000 and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, suggesting the labor market is losing steam and reinforcing the view that the economy is on track for a soft landing. To wit, fed funds futures were pricing in a 44% chance.....”, to which I responded, “Wild..... I’ll give you wild: GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices. don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the ‘alice-in-wonderland’ lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices now above $76; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market).” The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

BP: Pipeline Closing May Last for Months (8-7-06)AP -

BP said Monday it will replace 16 miles of pipeline from its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field and production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies.

Fed's Bernanke still sees inflation risks, but of course inasmuch as the worthless dollar is worth less by the day, with higher interest rates the only way to combat same in light of intransigent structural economic realities

(8-8-06) Stocks drop still only modestly relative to reality as the wall street fraud continues, in light of the blazing full moon and the lunatic frauds on wall street try to keep the suckers sucked in; ie., as the Dow Jones industrial average fell 45.79, Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 4.29, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 11.65. The frauds on wall street feel compelled to continue their tradition/superstition/fraud tactic of buying on the rumor and selling on the news(fact) of the Fed’s temporary pause in rate hikes. You see, the facts/news do not rationally warrant holding dollar based securities/stocks but provide a means to scam the stupid money, to the benefit of the wall street frauds/scammers and smart money. Oil prices down 67 cents to close at $76.31 a barrel. Yahoo previously commented: “Friday was a wild day on Wall Street with early gains fueled by an encouraging July jobs report being wiped away as the return of concern tied to an economic slowdown outweighed the potential of a pause in tightening at Tuesday's Fed meeting. Before the bell, nonfarm payrolls rose a less than expected 113,000 and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, suggesting the labor market is losing steam and reinforcing the view that the economy is on track for a soft landing. To wit, fed funds futures were pricing in a 44% chance.....”, to which I responded, “Wild..... I’ll give you wild: GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices. don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the ‘alice-in-wonderland’ lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices now above $77; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market).” The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

BP: Pipeline Closing May Last for Months (8-7-06)AP -

BP said Monday it will replace 16 miles of pipeline from its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field and production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies.

Fed's Bernanke still sees inflation risks, but of course inasmuch as the worthless dollar is worth less by the day, with higher interest rates the only way to combat same in light of intransigent structural economic realities

(8-7-06) Stocks drop still only modestly relative to reality as the wall street fraud continues and the lunatic frauds on wall street try to keep the suckers sucked in; ie., as the Dow Jones industrial average fell 20.97, Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 3.59, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 12.55. Oil prices soared to new record close over $77 a barrel. Yahoo previously commented: “Friday was a wild day on Wall Street with early gains fueled by an encouraging July jobs report being wiped away as the return of concern tied to an economic slowdown outweighed the potential of a pause in tightening at Tuesday's Fed meeting. Before the bell, nonfarm payrolls rose a less than expected 113,000 and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, suggesting the labor market is losing steam and reinforcing the view that the economy is on track for a soft landing. To wit, fed funds futures were pricing in a 44% chance.....”, to which I responded, “Wild..... I’ll give you wild: GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices. don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the ‘alice-in-wonderland’ lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices now above $77; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market).” The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

BP: Pipeline Closing May Last for Months (8-7-06)AP -

BP said Monday it will replace 16 miles of pipeline from its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field and production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies.

Fed's Bernanke still sees inflation risks, but of course inasmuch as the worthless dollar is worth less by the day, with higher interest rates the only way to combat same in light of intransigent structural economic realities.

(8-4-06) Stocks drop still only modestly relative to reality as the wall street fraud continues and the lunatic frauds on wall street try to keep the suckers sucked in; ie., as the Dow Jones industrial average fell 2, Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 7. Yahoo commented: “Friday was a wild day on Wall Street with early gains fueled by an encouraging July jobs report being wiped away as the return of concern tied to an economic slowdown outweighed the potential of a pause in tightening at Tuesday's Fed meeting. Before the bell, nonfarm payrolls rose a less than expected 113,000 and the unemployment rate rose for the first time since November, suggesting the labor market is losing steam and reinforcing the view that the economy is on track for a soft landing. To wit, fed funds futures were pricing in a 44% chance.....” Wild..... I’ll give you wild: GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices. don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices still above $74; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market). The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

Fed's Bernanke still sees inflation risks, but of course inasmuch as the worthless dollar is worth less by the day, with higher interest rates the only way to combat same in light of intransigent structural economic realities.

(8-3-06) Suckers’ bear market rally by the lunatic frauds on wall street to suck the suckers in; ie., dow up 42.66, S&P up 1.72, and Nasdaq up 13.53 points - the "miracle" of computerized manipulated trades. What Changed? Lot’s of “bull****ish news: ie., GM says their quarterly loss was $3.4 billion and not 3.2 billion as reported; Ford says their loss was $200 million dollars more than they previously reported; but both GM and Ford will now offer built-in ipods which should “substantially help” their core business of building cars; meanwhile, options/accounting scandal/subterfuge occurring at the apple ipod (anything but computers) company. Apple Computer Inc. warned Thursday that it may have to revise its profits dating back to 2002 in a worsening stock option scandal that has cast a harsh light on Silicon Valley's compensation practices; Earnings shortfalls also from blue chips like Sprint Nextel (S 17.75 -2.38) and Prudential (PRU 73.66 -4.62), Medtronic (MDT 44.32 -6.61) saying that Q1 results would fall short of analysts' forecasts, coupled with Ford Motor's (F 6.86 -0.10) downward revision to its previously reported second quarter results and a smaller than expected July same-store sales increase from Starbucks, which in the alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street is of course good news.; oil prices down slightly to close above $75; interest rates up as bond prices fall; and don’t forget that GDP growth slowed substantially and below expectations at 2.5% which in the alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street is of course good news, even as that closely watched core CPI inflation rate exceeded expectations at 2.9% and core inflation rates up. Stagflation? The fact is that no rational investor would choose dollar based stocks/securities when they could get less risky/liquid 5% yielding cds, money market instruments, short-term treasuries/funds, etc.. However it’s not rational investors that are racking up commission dollars trading in and out of stocks like termites eating away at the huge capital funds which they control. Nothing constituting real value would account for the fraudulent rally mode this and other days. Highly leveraged obfuscating mergers/acquisitions, also very “commissionable”(investment bankers/brokers), and historically have more often than not ended quite badly; oil prices now above $76; yes, as in the last crash, ‘they will get fooled again’ as stocks up sharply in the fraudulent "alice-in-wonderland" lunatic world of wall street where down is up and up is down. The stock market has never been so backward-looking. Indeed, amazingly, the “pundits/analysts” are even talking SEASONAL considerations in their fraud in the inducement which is the height of absurdity (such things are discounted well in advance in a rational market). The once objective, fact-oriented Barrons publication has now become a shill for the continuing fraud on wall street. Bush no conservative says Buckley(who also says that in Europe bush’s failed war policies would have required his expected resignation).....daaaaah!; neither are the hillbillies clintons and papa hillbilly bush. CNN's DOBBS BLASTS U.S. ISRAEL POLICY... BUCHANAN: 'Israel policy violates international law, is un-American and un-Christian'... The government is also catching on and playing the “better than expectations” game with the still very substantial deficit numbers, clouded by the use of social security funds used in the general fund rather than allocated for the defacto bankrupt social security system where they belong. ! Remember, leading economic indicators are down .6 percent continuing an ignored (by wall street frauds) downward trend/weakness extending back to the summer, 2005. Options scandal as was inherent in the (fraudulent) dotcom bust is extent and under way in nasdaq particularly. I previously warned be very skeptical of up-coming government/corporate/collaborative/wall street data inasmuch as they are quite desperate and have proven [ie., illegal Iraq war/occupation, 911 attack(for the neocon contrived “pearl harbor effect")/who ordered NORAD to stand down?/who were the pre911(within days) short-sellers?/the twin towers implosion, the missile that hit the pentagon precisely in the area that housed the army investigators who announced days before the opening of an investigation into a substantial pentagon fraud, etc.] that the truth is no obstacle when falsity is expedient and the lunatic frauds on wall street will try to tell you what’s up is down and what’s down is up. Lou Dobbs gets paid a lot of money to keep track of such things and doubts the verity of the government numbers. He is riiiiight! The catch-22 is that the defacto bankrupt u.s. is printing worthless paper (so much so that they’ve stopped reporting M3) and borrowing beyond sustainability, which is hyperinflationary despite false government numbers (ie., core inflation number to fraudulently decrease yield to ibond holders, etc.). Higher interest rates to prop worthless dollar and finance deficits inevitable despite wishin', hopin', and lyin’ to the contrary; foreclosures up, housing down, default notices up 67% (particularly in california, ie., orange, la, ventura, counties etc.) nationwide. Don’t forget: the equity in housing has been stripped out of real estate by way of the refinancing boom, which artificially stimulated the economic numbers while ultimately leaving buyers with debt exceeding actual property values. There is substantial downside bias in light of real economic considerations, particularly beyond the moment/trading day given that this bull (s**t) cycle in this indisputable secular bear market is over. Remember: more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which should be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same especially since only A Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital), The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades.

US '.....going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 14/07/2006)

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

UPDATE - Two former NYSE traders found guilty of fraud

Stock market staggers, but investors still may be too optimistic

Commentary: Newsletters react to stock markets' losing week
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch 12:04 AM ET Jul 17, 2006
Investors may still be too optimistic
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- First, a proprietary word: on Friday night, the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, stood at plus-23.8%. This was certainly below the 31.4% it showed on Tuesday night, when Mark Hulbert worried, presciently we must say, that it was too strong from a contrary opinion point of view. But it's still above its 12.6% reading at end of June, although, Mark pointed out, the stock market had declined in the interim. And since Mark wrote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had three triple-digit down days.

Not good.

Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell wrote Friday morning: "If the Dow breaks support at 10,760, I think we could have some nasty action, even some crash-type action." But, perhaps significantly, Russell did not quite hit the panic button when the Dow did indeed close at 10,739 Friday night.

He simply remarked, supporting the contrary opinion view: "Three days in a row with the Dow down over 100 points each day -- you don't see that very often. But still no signs of real fear, no capitulation, no panic -- just down, down, and down. The key consideration here is that there is still no sign of big money coming into this market. In fact, the big money has been leaving this market all year. ... The longer the market continues down without a panic decline, the worse the ultimate panic will be when it arrives."

What is Wrong with the Stock Market?

Dr. Khaled Batarfi

John D. Rockefeller was once asked why he decided to sell all his stocks just months before the 1929 Wall Street Crash. He explained: One morning, I was on the way to my office and stopped to have my shoes polished. The guy asked my advice about the shares he bought. If people with this kind of talent were now playing the market, I knew there was something wrong.....

U.S. Treasury balances at Fed fell on July 17Tue Jul 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury balances at the Federal Reserve, based on the Treasury Department's latest budget statement (billions of dollars, except where noted):

July 17 July 14 (respectively)

Fed acct 4.087 4.935

Tax/loan note acct 10.502 10.155

Cash balance 14.589 15.192

National debt,

subject to limit 8,311.633 8,323.084

The statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.

The Treasury said there were $192 million in individual tax refunds and $23 million in corporate tax refunds issued.

&nb