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Friday 07.06.2012

Three central banks take action in sign of alarm
by Mike Peacock
(Reuters) - China, the euro zone and Britain loosened monetary policy in the space of less than an hour on Thursday, signaling a growing level of alarm about the world economy, although suggestions of coordinated action were played down.
Of the three, the surprise move was from Beijing which lowered its lending rate by 31 basis points to 6 percent following an interest rate cut just a month ago that also came out of the blue.

Uh Oh: The Economy's 2 Biggest Signals
Are Pointing in Opposite Directions
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Housing leads recoveries. It's a law of American economics. There would have been no "Reagan Recovery" without the acceleration of home building in 1981. The last two bounce-backs -- shallow as they were -- in the early '90s and '00s also corresponded with a huge run-up in residential construction. So one reason why this recovery has been so disappointing is that home prices have kept falling, buyers have kept waiting, and the economy's most important booster engine has been dormant.
That might be changing. For the first time all year, sales prices for existing homes rose in April. Home sales are up, too. And construction spending is rising:

Thunder Road Report On The Death March:
Approaching A New Financial System
By Paul Mylchreest - ZeroHedge.com
If you are reading this, you are probably a member of what the sociologists would term middle class (albeit at the upper end). This is precisely the segment of society which is poised to come off worst from what is coming. Here is a very disturbing idea. As this crisis develops, if you are an equity portfolio manager and you want to outperform the market, you are going to have to position your portfolio so that it benefits most from your own wealth destruction and that of your family, friends and colleagues. Almost everybody is going to lose and there aren't many places to hide. This is deeply unpleasant but you can blame the central planners. I've written about my own investing, e.g. gold and silver, equities in terms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, etc. In this Thunder Road Report (below) and going forward, I will discuss this middle class theme and highlight positions I have in individual stocks, etc. The only good thing that can come out of this is a rise in awareness. It's just awful.

The Return of the Gold Standard
By Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
....A Strategic Shift
The return to gold is unmistakably the product of a strategic, not merely a tactical, shift in global central banking policy. Central banks in the developed world have now altogether stopped selling bullion. This was foreshadowed by their behavior over the past decade, when they sold even less gold than they were permitted to under the anti-dumping Central Bank Gold Agreements. Clearly the concern about dumping gold was out of step with the trend. But more importantly, central banks in the emerging markets have been buying gold by the truckload.

Silver, Gold and The Coming Deflation
By Hubert Moolman - SilverSeek.com
Historically gold has made its significant gains, relative to other assets (as well as nominally), not during inflation, but during deflation (Note: I am using the terms inflation and deflation very loosely in this case). These significant gold rallies historically occur when value flees instruments such as stocks and certain commodities.
Since the 1920s there have been three major gold rallies (1930s, 1970s and the current rally).
All three major gold rallies came after a significant top in the Dow and the Dow/Gold ratio (1929, 1966 and 1999). A great portion of the 1930s and 1970s rallies occurred when the Dow was falling significantly. In fact, the biggest rise in the gold price occurred when the Dow was falling or was trading closer to the bottom of its trading range during that period.

An American Declaration of Independence
From Big Government
by Richard Ebeling - TheDailyBell.com
The Declaration of Independence, signed by members of the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is the founding document of the American experiment in free government. What is too often forgotten is that what the Founding Fathers argued against in the Declaration was the heavy and intrusive hand of big government.
Most Americans easily recall those eloquent words with which the Founding Fathers expressed the basis of their claim for independence from Great Britain in 1776:

Europe, China lower rates in urgent effort to spur recovery
By Michael Birnbaum - WashingtonPost.com
BERLIN — Central banks around the world took major steps Thursday to stave off fears of global recession, with the European Central Bank slashing interest rates, China unexpectedly cutting bank lending rates and the Bank of England pumping billions of pounds into Britain's stimulus program.
The measures reflect a growing sense of international urgency about faltering economies and underline the continued power of central banks to take unilateral measures to fight the crisis, even as elected policymakers haggle over their own long-term responses.

What Euro Crisis?
By Norbert Walter - Project-Syndicate.org
FRANKFURT – What constitutes a crisis? Is it sustained economic decline, high and long-term unemployment, poverty, rampant inflation, a precipitous fall in the exchange rate, fiscal deficits, high borrowing costs, and political dysfunction? Most would agree that a crisis exists if just some of these "misery indices" are present. But, while Europe is widely perceived to be in the grip of crisis, only a handful of them are present, and in only a few eurozone countries.

Poison of Neo-National Socialist Public Banking
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
WestLB is almost gone. The bank that embodied many of the problems of Germany's Landesbanken sector – combining excessive international ambition with repeated crises brought on by poor risk controls – is to close for business this weekend after a deal with European Competition authorities. Its demise is the biggest realignment for many years among the Landesbanken, the publicly owned regional banks frequently regarded as one of the weakest links in the German banking system. WestLB will be broken up and its identity inherited by Portigon, a financial services provider that will not do banking business. The asset base of the Landesbanken sector has shrunk from some €2tn in 2007 to about €1.5tn and will be reduced further when WestLB and its €168bn of assets are excluded. – Financial Times
Dominant Social Theme: If only the government could print money, everything would be better.
Free-Market Analysis: It is ironic that as Germany's public banking sector continues its realignment (see above excerpt), various forms of public banking become more popular on the English-speaking Internet.

A.I.: The New God of Economics
BY CRIS SHERIDAN - FinancialSense.com

"Over a century ago, Nietzsche observed, 'Almost 2,000 years and no new God!' Indeed, though hundreds of new religions appear and disappear every year, it has been centuries since a truly new great religion has appeared on this planet. We are overdue for a new god."—Paul Saffo, futurist, writing for The Economist

In the aftermath of the financial crisis—first in the U.S. and now in Europe—there has been a steady chorus of influential and prominent thinkers testifying that the field of economics is in none other than a full-blown existential crisis. George Soros, for example, speaking at the Italian Festival of Economics last month, said "there has been a widespread recognition, both among economists and the general public, that economic theory has failed." Then there's Paul Saffo, writing for Foreign Policy who states, "we know more about weather systems and the like than we know about the global econosphere, and our weather forecasting is unquestionably better than our economic forecasting."

Equities Fumble As Broke Banks Mounting
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Volumes were not that far below average today as the Dow and the S&P (but not the miraculous NASDAAPL - not that story again please!) ended the day lower after some significant intraday volatility early (around the ECB/BoE decisions and jobs/ISM data in the US). S&P 500 e-mini futures levitated off the day's early lows to stabilize around VWAP before testing up to unchanged and then losing it all into the close on heavy volume and larger average trade size. Financials were the biggest losers, as the big banks dumped off most of their EU-Summit gains (with JPM and MS down over 4% today), followed closely by Energy names - even with WTI basically treading water close to close (despite some +/-2% swings early on). USD strength saw Silver lagging on the day and gold dropped a little but rather notably since the EU-Summit, gold and the S&P have been trading more in lockstep (with Treasuries and the USD pointing to more risk-off perspectives). Elsewhere in commodity-land, corn continues its upsurge - now up 40% in the last 3 weeks.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Metals Rigging Worse Than LIBOR
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.
It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
Frantz Fanon
"Or one may say that there were no real human villains; that given the economic and political cues, actors would have been in the wings to come on and play the parts which circumstances dictated.

Exposure of Banker Corruption
By: Jim Willie CB - GoldSeek.com
Few observers make the connection, but the current LIBOR scandal is a middle inning of two important events. The first is the demise of the Western banker leadership crew. The executives from the most powerful banks will be last to be deposed, all sharing an ethnic strain. The second is the open fracture of the Western financial system. Over the past few years, to be sure a great many people have grown tired of Jackass descriptions of corruption within the banking sector and financial system in general. Well, hear this: TOLD YA SO! The London Interbank Offered Rate scandal will erupt into an uncontrollable firestorm, hitting one chamber and then the next, with rapid contagion. The Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are both implicated, but they will skate until the end game.

The LIBOR Scandal Is a Sham
Engineered by Central Banking Elites?
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
....Even ten years ago the power elite that runs central banking around the world could have gotten away with this massive fraud. But over time the alternative media will chip away at the nonsensical accusations swirling around the banks that create LIBOR.
People, already thinking for themselves (and more and more will), will see in this great, orchestrated showpiece that they are being tricked. A kind of malign "bait and switch is going on."

Why the LIBOR scandal is a bigger deal than JPMorgan
Posted by Dylan Matthews - WashingtonPost.com
Last week, Barclay's admitted to rigging the London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and agreed to pay U.S. and British regulators $450 million dollars in penalties to settle the case. Then the heads began to roll: On Tuesday, its CEO, Bob Diamond, and COO Jerry del Missier resigned, and yesterday Diamond told a British parliamentary inquiry that regulators in Washington and London alike were complicit in his manipulations.
This is a big deal. Remember that JP Morgan scandal a few months back? That was mostly JP Morgan hurting itself. The LIBOR scandal was Barclay's making money by hurting you.

The Big Losers in the Libor Rate Manipulation
By George Washington - Ritholtz.com
Local Governments Which Entered Into Interest Rate Swaps Got Scalped
We know that the big banks conspired to manipulate Libor rates, with the approval of government authorities.
We know that the Libor manipulation effected the world's largest market – interest rate derivatives.
But who are the biggest victims?
Sometimes the big banks manipulated the Libor rates up, and sometimes down. Different groups of people got hurt depending which way the rates were gamed.
Bloomberg's Darrell Preston explained last year how cities and other local governments got scalped when rates were manipulated downward:

The Biggest Financial Scandal In History?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
We always knew that the financial markets were rigged, but this is getting ridiculous. It is now being alleged that 20 major banks have been systematically fixing global interest rates for years. Barclays has already been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating Libor (the London Inter Bank Offered Rate). But Barclays says that a whole bunch of other banks were doing this too. This is shaping up to be the biggest financial scandal in history, and criminal investigations have been launched on both sides of the Atlantic. What those investigations are likely to uncover could shake the financial markets to their very core. In the end, this scandal could absolutely devastate confidence in the global financial system and it could potentially bring down a number of major global banks. We have never seen anything quite like this before.

The LIBOR affair
Banksters
How Britain's rate-fixing scandal
might spread—and what to do about it
The Economist.com
"SINCE we have not more power of knowing the future than any other men, we have made many mistakes (who has not during the past five years?), but our mistakes have been errors of judgment and not of principle." So reflected J.P. Morgan junior in 1933, in the middle of a financial crisis. Today's bankers can draw no such comfort from their behaviour. The attempts to rig LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered rate), a benchmark interest rate, not only betray a culture of casual dishonesty; they set the stage for lawsuits and more regulation right the way round the globe. This could well be global finance's "tobacco moment".

Introducing The Internet Reformation Society (IRS)
For Global Monetary and Political Reform
by Ron Holland - TheDailyBell.com

"Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it." – Ludwig von Mises

The Internet Reformation is Here
Anthony Wile invented the term "Internet Reformation" to brilliantly describe the end of top-down elite control over information flow, history, politics and current events. This control mechanism was used for centuries by the state and behind-the-scenes power elites to control populations and political jurisdictions but now advances in electronic communications, alternative news and social media are threatening their world order.
"The Internet Reformation is the culmination of the power and glory of Western civil society and free-market thinking. It is the apogee of all that is best in a sweep of history that began with the ancient Greeks and has culminated in the hearts and minds of millions of young men and women who industriously add to its impact every day via additional code, non-mainstream news or fundamental scientific commentary.

The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible
By Brandon Smith - Alt-Market.com
I understand the dream of the common socialist. I was, after all, once a Democrat. I understand the disparity created in our society by corporatism (not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same). I understand the drive and the desire to help other human beings, especially those in dire need, and the tendency to see government as the ultimate solution to all our problems. That said, let's be honest; government is in the end just a tool used by one group or another to implement a particular methodology or set of principles. Unfortunately, what most socialists today don't seem to understand is that no matter what strategies they devise, they will NEVER have control. And, those they wish to help will be led to suffer, because the establishment does not care about them, or you. The establishment does not think of what it can give, it thinks about what it can take. Socialism, in the minds of the elites, is a con-game which allows them to quarry the favor of the serfs, and nothing more.

Federal government fails small businesses
for eleventh straight year
By J.D. Harrison - WashingtonPost.com
The federal government has yet again fallen short of its stated small-business contractinggoals, extending a streak of coming up just shy for an eleventh consecutive year.
Federal agencies awarded a total of $91.5 billion to small companies in fiscal 2011, down 7 percent from $97.9 billion the year prior, according data released Tuesday by the Small Business Administration. That amounts to 21.7 percent of all prime government contracts, down from 22.7 percent in fiscal 2010 and even further short of the stated annual goal of 23 percent.

Countrywide Used Loan Discounts To Buy Congress,
Fannie Mae Execs, Other Government Officials
By LARRY MARGASAK - HufingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation's foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said that the discounts – from January 1996 to June 2008, were not only aimed at gaining influence for the company but to help mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Countrywide's business depended largely on Fannie, which at the time was trying to fend off more government regulation but eventually had to come under government control.

Destroying the Young with Permanent Bailouts
BY PAUL TUSTAIN - FinancialSense.com
The tyranny of banking deposit insurance is leading young people to hate 'the market'...
Why aren't young people protesting against bailouts?
Younger adults are usually pretty quick to protest injustices, but they're strangely quiet on financial rescues. Few of them seem able to join the dots and see that bailouts are clobbering them hardest.

Who's Buying Up Your Neighborhood?
By Preeti Vissa - HuffingtonPost.com
Last week, Urban Strategies Council, a smart and savvy nonprofit in Oakland, Calif., caused a bit of a local stir with a report looking at who's been buying up foreclosed properties in their city -- a town that's been seriously hit by the foreclosure crisis. What they found is almost certainly not limited to Oakland, and should be cause for discussion nationwide.
In a nutshell, Urban Strategies reported that widespread foreclosures are producing a massive change in the ownership of entire communities:
Our analysis reveals that -- as of October 2011 -- investors had acquired 42 percent of all properties that went through foreclosure since 2007 in Oakland. Of these properties acquired by investors, 93 percent are located in the low-income flatland neighborhoods of the city. Further, only ten out of the top 30 most active investors are located in Oakland.

An Off-the-Wall Plan to Save Homeowners
(and Make Some Investors Rich)
In California, a venture capital fund wants to help local governments seize mortgages from banks and give borrowers a break. Who cares if investors would make a killing? The housing market might get healthy.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
It is distinctly possible that some small cities in California and a venture capital fund are hatching a plan that could fix our sick housing market, and maybe start healing the economy.
More than five years after the real estate bubble began to burst, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that the America's chief economic affliction is still real estate. About a fifth of all U.S. mortgages are currently underwater, meaning the borrowers owe more to the bank than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic's widely cited estimate. That's 11.1 million households who are stuck paying off debt on a bad investment they've been trapped in instead of spending on trips to the mall, a new car, or a vacation.

Health care law 'here to stay,' president insists
Mandate utilizes a penalty, not tax, Obama camp says
By Stephen Dinan and Susan Crabtree-The Washington Times
President Obama defiantly insisted Thursday that his health care law is "here to stay" — and so, apparently, is the controversy over whether the massive plan is enforced by a penalty or a tax.
After watching Mitt Romney's campaign stumble for much of this week over that question, Mr. Obama and his advisers are now facing the same questions as they try to grapple with the individual mandate and the Supreme Court's ruling that it is, indeed, a "tax."

The future of Medicaid
Run for cover
The Supreme Court's ruling has grave implications for the poor
By The Economist.com
OBAMACARE'S individual "mandate", or requirement to buy health insurance, has been the most controversial part of a bitterly controversial law. The Supreme Court's decision on June 28th to uphold it was historic. But the reality of the mandate fails to live up to the rhetoric. The penalty for not buying insurance is less a stick than a noodle. The fine is fairly small, and those who do not pay it face no further punishment. Arguably much more important, in purely practical terms, was the Supreme Court's ruling on Medicaid.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves:
10 Ways That Obama Is Killing Jobs In America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Have you ever heard the old saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves"? According to Wikipedia, that phrase is often "used sarcastically to indicate the counterproductive nature of such punishment or excessive control over subordinates such as staff in the workplace or children living at home." Well, apparently Barack Obama believes that the more punishment that he inflicts on the U.S. economy the more we will like him. What other explanation is there for his insane economic policies? The truth is that Barack Obama is killing jobs in America. His regulations are absolutely crippling our businesses, he has been heavily promoting new job killing "free trade" agreements, Obamacare has the potential to be the most job killing law of all time, and he is running up debt that will crush job creation in this country for ages to come. Obama will likely go down as the most anti-business president in U.S. history. He has presided over the worst "recovery" from a recession in post-World War II history, and under his leadership a whole host of economic statistics have steadily gotten worse. The percentage of working age Americans that have jobs has not bounced back since the end of the last recession, and now the next major economic crisis is rapidly approaching.

* * * * *

Malware May Knock Thousands Off Internet
AP - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON—Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.
According to the FBI, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. About 64,000 still-infected computers are probably in the United States.

To check whether a computer is infected, users can visit the DNSChanger web site: http://www.dcwg.org

What is the DNS Changer Malware?
On November 8, the FBI, the NASA-OIG and Estonian police arrested several cyber criminals in "Operation Ghost Click". The criminals operated under the company name "Rove Digital", and distributed DNS changing viruses, variously known as TDSS, Alureon, TidServ and TDL4 viruses. You can read more about the arrest of the Rove Digital principals here, and in the FBI Press Release.

What does the DNS Changer Malware do?
The botnet operated by Rove Digital altered user DNS settings, pointing victims to malicious DNS in data centers in Estonia, New York, and Chicago. The malicious DNS servers would give fake, malicious answers, altering user searches, and promoting fake and dangerous products. Because every web search starts with DNS, the malware showed users an altered version of the Internet.
Under a court order, expiring July 9, the Internet Systems Consortium is operating replacement DNS servers for the Rove Digital network. This will allow affected networks time to identify infected hosts, and avoid sudden disruption of services to victim machines.

Here's a (non-invasive) QUICK CHECK FOR U.S computers. to see if your computer has been infected - if background is GREEN, you're OK - if RED, you're NOT.

First Instance of iOS App Store Malware Detected, Removed
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
It has not been a good day for the App Store. Shortly after it came to light that a widespread bug has been causing newly updated apps distributed by the store to instantly crash upon opening, security researchers unearthed the first known instance of malware in another application in the iOS App Store.
Kaspersky antivirus experts discovered a Russian-language app called "Find and Call" that was available in both the Apple App Store and in Google Play. The app is essentially a Trojan that steals and uploads the user's address book to a remote server. Once uploaded, the server then sends spam to the email addresses and phone numbers belonging to the victim's contacts telling them about the Find and Call application. The app also grabs the GPS coordinates from the victim's phone and uploads them to the server.

Appageddon! Apple Botches DRM Update,
Crashes Dozens of Apps
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
The July 4th holiday has not been kind to Apple users and app developers. Starting late in the day on July 3, Apple began pushing out corrupt App Store updates that cause immediate app crashes. In effect, you launch your app, then — boom! — it dies.
Instapaper founder Marco Arment detailed the widespread issue, which is now affecting at least 73 major app titles, in a blog post Wednesday. The problem seems to be linked with Apple's FairPlay DRM, a copy-protection scheme used for apps in the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, as well as videos and iBooks from iTunes.
Some of the apps currently affected by the issue include Angry Birds Space HD Free, Scanner Pro, GoodReader, and Instapaper.

Outrage over 'white ONLY' Christian conference in the South.
Flier for whites only pastors' conference has residents upset
WINFIELD, AL (WBRC) - In most situations, a flier advertising a pastors' conference wouldn't cause much stir, but one event in West Alabama has the townspeople of Winfield upset.
The flier was discovered at Norris Music in downtown Winfield Monday advertising for a conference titled: "Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited."
"It was put up throughout the town in the middle of the night. When everyone was asleep without the permission of the business owner." Norris Music manager Tyler Cantrell said.

"Turn In Your Guns At Your Local Church"
By Chuck Baldwin - Alt-Market.com
Last weekend, the Chicago Police Department collaborated with over 20 local churches in a giant effort to encourage Chicagoans "to get guns out of their homes." WBBM News Radio has the story. "Using the lure of $100 gift cards, the Chicago Police Department is encouraging people to get guns out of their homes and turn them in this Saturday, during the annual gun turn-in program."
The news report goes on to say, "[T]he Police Department is partnering with 20 churches.
First Deputy Supt. Alfonza Wysinger says anyone who turns in a real gun will get a $100 gift card. Replicas and BB guns are worth $10.

Can Americans Escape the Deception?
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Hot Air Day is upon us. On July 4 hot air will spew forth all over the country as dignitaries deliver homilies to our "freedom and democracy" and praise "our brave troops" who are protecting our freedom by "killing them over there before they come over here."
Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth. No speaker will lament the death of the US Constitution or urge his audience to action to restore the only document that protects their liberty. No speaker will acknowledge that in the 21st century the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity of the Department of Justice, federal courts, Congress, presstitute media, law schools, bar associations, and an insouciant public have murdered the Constitution in the name of the "war on terror."

Obama Administration Participates
in Finalizing UN Gun Grabbing Treaty
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
United Nations apparatchiks are finalizing details on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Obama administration is taking an active role. A treaty conference commenced on July 3 at the United Nations and is scheduled to run through July 27. Attendees will spend nearly a month tweaking a treaty draft.
"Our common goal is clear: a robust and legally binding Arms Trade Treaty that will have a real impact on the lives of those millions of people suffering from the consequences of armed conflict, repression and armed violence," said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the opening of the conference. "It is ambitious, but it is achievable."

Japan Investigation Finds
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 'Man-Made'
By Akiko Fujita - ABCNews.com
The Fukushima nuclear disaster was a "man-made" accident caused by a utility and government regulators who put self-interest before the interest of the public, an independent parliamentary commission reported today after a six-month investigation into the crises.
The 641-page report, the first of its kind with wide-ranging subpoena powers in Japan's constitutional history, is the result of more than 900 hours of hearings and 1,100 interviews with officials, including the former president of operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, Masataka Shimizu, and former Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

China's central bank cuts lending, deposit rates
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China's central bank on Thursday unveiled a surprise interest rate cut, lowering borrowing and deposit rates while also enabling banks greater leeway in setting their own lending rates at a discount to the benchmark.
The People's Bank of China lowered its one-year yuan deposit rate 25 basis points, or a quarter percentage point, to 3% and its one-year lending rate by 31 basis points to 6%, according to a statement posted on its website.

U.S. files complaint against China over auto tariffs
By David Nakamura and
and Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
MAUMEE, Ohio — The United States has filed a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization over tariffs on American-made automobile exports, the Obama administration announced Thursday.
The action comes as President Obama has pledged to get tougher on China's trade policies to help level the economic playing field with the Asian economic power. The tariffs under dispute cover about 80 percent of U.S. automobile exports to China, the administration said.

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