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Wednesday 05.16.2012

The Bank Runs In Greece
Will Soon Be Followed By Bank Runs
In Most Of The Rest Of Europe
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The bank runs that we are watching right now in Greece are shocking, but they are only just the beginning. Since May 6th, nearly one billion dollars has been withdrawn from Greek banks. For a small nation like Greece, that is an absolutely catastrophic number. At this point, the entire Greek banking system is in danger of collapsing. If you had money in a Greek bank, why wouldn't you pull it out? If Greece leaves the euro, all euros in Greek banks will likely be converted to drachmas, and the value of those drachmas will almost certainly decline dramatically. In fact, it has been estimated that Greek citizens could see the value of their bank accounts decline by up to 50 percent if Greece leaves the euro. So if you had money in a Greek bank, it would only make sense to withdraw it and move it to another country as quickly as possible. And as the eurozone begins to unravel, this is a scenario that we are going to see play out in country after country. As member nations leave the eurozone, you would be a fool to have your euros in Italian banks or Spanish banks when you could have them in German banks instead. So the bank runs that are happening in Greece right now are only a preview of things to come. Before this crisis is over we are going to see bank runs happening all over Europe.

Greek Depositors Withdrew $898 Million From Banks Monday
[Google 'title' for free article pass]
By NEKTARIA STAMOULI - WSJ.com $$
ATHENS—Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from local banks Monday, the country's president said, as he warned that the situation facing Greece's lenders was very difficult.
In a transcript of remarks by President Karolos Papoulias to Greek political leaders that was released Tuesday, Mr. Papoulias said that withdrawals plus buy orders received by Greek banks for German bunds totalled some 800 million.
Citing a conversation he had with Greek Central Bank Governor George Provopoulos, Mr. Papoulias said "that the strength of banks is very weak right now."

Greek President Told Banks Anxious as Deposits Pulled
By Natalie Weeks and Maria Petrakis - Bloomberg.com
Greek President Karolos Papoulias was told by the central bank chief this week that financial institutions are becoming anxious about their prospects as Greeks pull out cash after inconclusive May 6 elections.
"Provopoulos told me that of course there's no panic but there's great fear which can evolve into panic," according to a transcript of the president's meeting with party leaders on May 14 that was published yesterday. Central bank head George Provopoulos told Papoulias that Greeks have withdrawn as much as 700 million euros ($893 million) and the situation could worsen, according to the transcript.

Greece Weighs $562 Million Default or Yield Choice
By John Glover - Bloomberg.com
Greece, which hasn't had a government for more than a week and whose 10-year debt yields more than 27 percent, decides today whether to pay 436 million euros ($562 million) to bondholders who shunned last month's debt swap.
A floating-rate note sold a decade ago by Europe's most- indebted nation matures today. Repaying the security would disadvantage investors who took losses in the bond exchange and voters facing spending cuts. Reneging on the obligation also would constitute a default, triggering derivatives contracts and clauses requiring the settlement of other unswapped bonds. Meantime, the country has no government to make the choice.

Merkel tells Greece to back cuts or face euro exit
Greece may be forced to leave the euro if the country refuses to implement spending cuts agreed with the European Union, Angela Merkel warned.
By Robert Winnett, David Blair
and Bruno Waterfield - Telegraph.co.uk
Raising the spectre of a Greek exit, the German chancellor said "solidarity for the euro" was threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Athens.
Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of Britain's major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit particularly hard.
The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread.

Europe Must Face Ugly Reality of Greek Exit from Euro
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
A Greek exit from the euro area has the potential to be the European Union's most economically and politically destructive event of a generation. Unfortunately, Europe has reached the point where it must prepare for such an outcome.
Whether Greeks want it or not, circumstances could soon force their country to return to the drachma. Europe's leaders, as Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker hinted, might extend Greece's deadlines to meet the budget targets required for rescue money, but they won't provide emergency financing to a government that refuses austerity measures. Without Europe's help, Greece's government (whoever ends up leading it) faces a dilemma: Cut spending even more than under the austerity program, or default on its debts and print a new currency to pay its bills.

The Great Depression Part 2/
Greece Starts the Run On the Banks.

Little country threatens big impact
By Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Quentin Peel in Berlin - FT.com
For more than 20 years, Jean-Claude Piris was one of the most powerful men in Brussels, a top EU lawyer who almost singlehandedly authored the series of international treaties that took a loosely affiliated community of 12 to a quasi-political union of 27, complete with its own currency.
So when Mr Piris retired last year and published a book arguing the EU had grown too large too quickly, it set off a firestorm among the euorocracy. "To blame us for the imprudent lending within the eurozone, we just find that offensive nonsense," said a senior minister from a newer, central European member state.

Europe's Achilles heel
Amid growing risk of a Greek exit, the euro zone has yet to face up to the task of saving the single currency itself
Economist.com
THE respite in the euro crisis lasted a few short months. Now, despite a €130 billion ($169 billion) second bail-out for Greece, a fiscal compact agreed on by the euro-zone leaders in December, and €1 trillion of cheap long-term loans from the European Central Bank, the night terrors are back. How dispiriting that Europe is still so ill-prepared for the ordeal to come.

If Greece Quits Euro, Its Ruin Will Be Pointless
By Clive Crook - Bloomberg.com
The chaos in Greece has resumed and a new election that nobody expects to resolve anything looms. Exasperated European Union officials have begun openly discussing the country's exit from the euro currency system. This is a grave mistake. Greece's exit would be no less catastrophic than when the EU called it unthinkable -- and not just for Greece.
"Divorce is never smooth," Luc Coene, the governor of Belgium's central bank and a member of the European Central Bank's governing council, told the Financial Times on May 13. "I guess an amicable divorce -- if that was ever needed -- would be possible but I would still regret it."

Italy's banks shaken as economic slump deepens
As Greece erupts, Italy is moving into the eye of the storm. Its economy is contracting at speeds not seen since the depths of the slump in 2009 as draconian austerity bites, greatly increasing the risk of social revolt and a banking crisis.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
With the world's third largest debt after the US and Japan at €1.9 trillion (£1.18 trillion), it is big enough to bring the global financial system to its knees. It is also in the front line of contagion as the Greek crisis metastasizes.
Yields on 10-year Italian debt jumped 16 points to 5.86pc on Tuesday after Italy's data agency said the country is sliding even into deeper recession, with GDP shrinking 0.8pc in the first quarter.

5000 METRIC TONS GONE
FROM WEST TO EAST SINCE FEB 29TH RAID
"Western Banks Being 'Cleaned Out' of Physical Gold On Price Weakness; 5000+ tonnes"
By Jim Willie - Implode-Explode.com
After a seeming tough messy but productive week in the gold trading trench warfare, my reliable gold trader source offered a summary with more expressed satisfaction than ever conveyed in all the years we have been in contact. It is not completely over as a war, but the Battle of the Bulge and Battle of Midway seem concluded, each a major victory. This message is of chest pounding with a foot atop a dead victim. Thegold price is surely depressed, but the gold cartel is reportedly mortally wounded. The path upward might be cleared to the point of ending this latest round of price suppression. The Good Guys have finished a mission for this round. The gold trader has a keen knowledge of WW2 and hardened experience of Russia. He wrote, "This is great. The market is cleaned out when it comes to physical. The purchases to drain the cartel are 1000 MT [metric tons] per shot/transaction. The Boyz are illiquid and have to sell at budget bargain prices.

What Will Happen to Greece and Gold?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
What Greek Elections Now Mean
Greece cannot form a government so expect elections within a month. We have come to the point where the bad news is out –the markets are telling us that Greece will likely leave the Eurozone and possibly the euro as their 10-year debt continues to trade at 27%. They may not pay out €436 million to creditors and keep it, fearing they will not get the next bailout tranche. Reneging on the obligation also would constitute a default triggering derivatives contracts and clauses requiring the settlement of other un-swapped bonds. Meantime the country has no government to make the choice. The country may run out of money by early July. The standoff has reignited concern that Greece will renege on pledges to cut spending as required by the terms of its two bailouts negotiated since May 2010.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
More Liquidation on Greece and Facebook
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
More concern on Greece and what will happen if it leaves the Euro had traders fleeing risk and commodities including gold and silver.
There is also quite a bit of secondary liquidation being done as traders raise cash for 'the Big Flip' when Facebook comes out after the bell on Thursday.
Expectations are for the stock to price in the 30's, and then run up in the secondary market into the 60's at which point those who had the IPO can liquidate if the momentum traders provide liquidity and institutions and mom and pop pick up the slack.

Is Fear of Deflation Sapping Gold and Silver?
Rick Ackerman - SilverSeek.com
There's no point in pretending it's those sleazy, child-molesting bullion bankers at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan who have been pounding on mining stocks and bullion futures in the last few months. Lately, it has felt like the whole world has been dumping them. For the record, we are ourselves cautious buyers of bullion futures and select mining stocks at these levels, since many popular trading and investment vehicles that we track are closing on important Hidden Pivot correction targets. (Want to find out the exact prices at which were are doing the buying?

Group of Eight set to meet;
France's Francois Hollande to first visit Obama
By David Nakamura and Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
Leaders of the world's eight richest economies are set to gather at Camp David this weekend amid questions about Europe's spiraling debt crisis.
But before they do, one key player, French President Francois Hollande, will stop by the White House to introduce himself to President Obama.

America's G-Zero Moment
By Ian Bremmer - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – The 2008 financial crisis marked the end of the global order as we knew it. In advance of the upcoming G-8 summit, it is impossible to overlook the fact that, for the first time in seven decades, the United States cannot drive the international agenda or provide global leadership on all of today's most pressing problems.
Indeed, the US has trimmed its presence abroad by refusing to contribute to a eurozone bailout, intervene in Syria, or use force to contain Iran's nuclear breakout (despite strong Israeli support). President Barack Obama officially ended the war in Iraq, and is withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan at a pace constrained only by the need to save face. America is handing off the leadership baton – even if no other country or group of countries is willing or able to grasp it.

A promising EU offer Obama refuses to accept
By C. Boyden Gray - WashingtonTimes.com
The European Union has endured decades of criticism for its overregulating and "under-risk-taking." Finally, responding to its frustrated business community and backed by every single member state, the EU is looking to regulatory reform to foster desperately needed economic growth. A central reform is the proposed EU-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. But amazingly, the Obama White House refuses, for no articulated reason, to embrace the deal.

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Lindsey Williams on JP Morgan $2 billion loss May 2012
5 US Banks have $292 TRILLION exposure in derivatives markets; JPM is a crack in market and tip of the ice berg -- then currency wars -- then trade wars -- then rise interest rates and 'paper' becomes worthless. World wide financial collapse is now inevitable. Pension funds are in dire jeopardy. Lindsey's new DVD (May 8th) - "Tactics of the Elite" - 785-266-1112

Systemic Risk Is Everywhere
By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
The $2 billion loss of JP Morgan in derivatives trading is signaling, once again, the enormous risks big banks take with taxpayer backing. All U.S. banks are covered by the FDIC, and if a loss is big enough, it could threaten the financial system just as it did in 2008. JP Morgan has $70 trillion in total derivative exposure. The entire world has a little more than $700 trillion in derivative exposure, and one bank has 10% of all the derivative exposure on the planet! If JP Morgan gets into trouble, it alone could cause systemic failure. Today, the FBI announced an investigation into the surprise $2 billion (or more) trading loss that happened last week at the bank. Reuters reported, "The probe was seen in some quarters as necessary, given the ongoing debate in Washington about bank regulation and reform, and one expert said it raised the level of concern around what happened. 'The FBI looks for evidence of crimes and goes after people who it alleges are criminals. They want to send people to jail. The SEC pursues all sorts of wrongdoing, imposes fines and is half as scary as the FBI,' said Erik Gordon, a professor in the law and business schools at the University of Michigan."

Keiser Report: Countdown to Armageddon (E288)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert have a field day dissecting Jamie Dimon's 'egregious, terrible mistake,' the possible insider trading around those so-called mistake and what the Leveson Inquiry may tell us about the SEC's Mary Schapiro's 'focus' on these oh so egregious mistakes. In the second half of the show Max talks to Nomi Prins, a former senior executive at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns, about the problems at JP Morgan's London trading desk.

Bill Black: On JP Morgan's "Hedge", Jamie Dimon's Integrity, and the Epic Conflicts of Interest in the Federal Reserve System
CapitalismWithoutFailure.com
The story that JP Morgan is telling us: They had about $15 billion in distressed European debt. Europe has been in trouble, so those investments were losing value. Their story, which does not make sense, is that they decided to hedge this position with a derivative of a derivative. In this case, it was an index of credit default swaps, which is the form of derivative that blew up AIG. JP Morgan's story is that instead of offsetting the risk, the hedge increased the losses dramatically. They woke up one morning, and they had a $2 billion loss.
Why it does not make sense: If you have distressed European debt, you are supposed to have already reserved against the losses in it. So why hedge the position at all? Just sell it. Get rid of these incredibly risky assets before they can suffer any additional losses. If you already have losses, it is not necessary to recognize a loss, because you have already reserved for it. So, you should not have had to hedge, period.

Rick Santelli vs Steve Liesman:
The Chase Bank Trade and the Federal Reserve

JPMorgan's Busted Bet Was No Chance Encounter
BY SHAH GILANI, Capital Waves Strategist, Money Morning
This weekend I was strolling by JPMorgan Chase's (NYSE: JPM) Park Avenue office building in Manhattan.
It was 11:40 am, and I was returning from a long walk from my midtown hotel down to Chelsea (it was definitely "a Chelsea morning" in NYC... thank you Joni Mitchell).
I hadn't planned to walk by their office building; I didn't even know where it was.
But there I was, rounding 48th Street on Park Avenue, when I saw the JPM sign. I thought, how ironic, I'm in New York, appearing on FOX News to talk about the debacle at JPM, and here I am serendipitously walking by their office building.
But it gets even better.

J.P. Morgan Moves to Protect Dimon
[Google 'title' for free article pass]
By DAN FITZPATRICK And JOANN S. LUBLIN - WSJ.com $$
J.P. Morgan Chase closed ranks around Chief Executive James Dimon ahead of a shareholder meeting and announced the departure of a senior executive at the center of a trading blunder that has cost the bank more than $2 billion in losses.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, on Monday used the losses to argue for stricter Wall Street regulation. At a taping of ABC's "The View," according to excerpts released by the network, he said: "This is one of the best managed banks. You could have a bank that isn't as strong…and we might have had to step in. That's why Wall Street reform is so important." Mr. Obama praised Mr. Dimon as "one of the smartest bankers we got," adding: "and they still lost $2 billion and counting."

The following interview explains derivatives market losses in Europe (it's not about debt); banks are not done bleeding the public, yet. Bigger bets all along the way. Fed collusion with ECB and next move to Asia. Derivatives market exposure was $707 TRILLION as of last December. (December 2011) JPM has approximately 11% of global derivatives.

Nomi Prins 1/2 $7.7 Trillion FED Bailout:
US Mega-Bank Derivatives
Alex talks with author and journalist Nomi Prins. She is a former managing director of Goldman Sachs and a Bears Stearns analyst. On December 1, she wrote for Infowars.com about the Federal Reserve's continuation of bailout economics and protecting US mega-banks from losses incurred by European banks through derivatives. Prins is the author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street.

Nomi Prins 2/2 $7.7 Trillion FED Bailout:
US Mega-Bank Derivatives

Timothy Geithner: JPMorgan 'case for reform'
By MJ LEE | Politico.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday weighed in on JP Morgan's $2 billion loss, saying that the bank's risky hedging makes a "very powerful case" for financial reform.
"This failure of risk management is just a very powerful case for reform, for financial reform — reforms we still have ahead and the reforms we've already put in place," Geithner said. "The test to reform is not whether you can prevent banks from making mistakes errors of judgment or risk management. That's going to happen, it's inevitable. The test of reform should be — do those mistakes put at risk the broader economy, financial system, or the taxpayer?"

Why JPMorgan gets away with bad bets
By William K. Black, Special to CNN
(CNN) -- JPMorgan Chase can be considered a systemically dangerous institution, which means that it is "too big to fail" because the government fears that its collapse would cause a global financial crisis.
It is simply irrational to allow such an institution to exist, especially when it can easily incur a $2 billion trading loss.
Banks are more efficient when shrunk to the point that they can no longer endanger the world economy. But because JPMorgan and similar banks are the leading contributors to Democrats and Republicans, neither political party has the courage to order them to reform.

Why We're All J.P. Morgan Now
The entire world of investing, including your 401(k), is now being run just like J.P. Morgan's "synthetic credit portfolio."
By BRETT ARENDS - SmartMoney.com
The drama unfolding at J.P. Morgan Chase is stunning.
Gripping.
And oh so predictable.
If you think this is just a story about Wall Street greed and folly, and has nothing to do with you, think again. We are all J.P. Morgan now.
To recap: The bank just lost $2 billion in something called its "synthetic credit portfolio" by taking big bets on European bonds. The trader involved, Bruno Iksil, was known as "the London Whale" and "Lord Voldemort" for his big trades. Heads are now rolling. CEO Jamie Dimon is under pressure.

FBI probes JPMorgan, shareholders back Dimon
By David Henry
(Reuters) - The FBI has opened an inquiry into the multibillion-dollar trading losses at JPMorgan Chase, stepping up pressure on the bank after key U.S. agencies said they were looking into high-risk trades that first drew regulators' attention last month.
The news did little to spook investors, who sent the stock higher Tuesday, or shareholders, who backed embattled Chief Executive Jamie Dimon at the bank's annual shareholders meeting, with a vote rejecting a proposal to split the jobs of CEO and chairman.

JPMorgan's Dimon gets his $23 million pay package
By Charles Riley @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Even as he apologized for a $2 billion trading loss, shareholders approved JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's $23 million pay package Tuesday at the bank's annual meeting.
The meeting comes just days after the bank disclosed the massive trading loss, an event that led to the departure of its chief investment officer and forced its CEO to repeatedly apologize for the bank's actions.

The "Corzine-Dimon Syndrome"
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
05/15/12 Laguna Beach, California – On its best days, the American judicial process is a blindfolded Lady Justice — prosecuting the truly guilty and exonerating the truly innocent. On its worst days, it is a Water Wiggle — whirling around unpredictably, without any apparent connection to guilt, innocence, Constitutionality or the proportionality of alleged crimes to one another.
On good days, guilty parties go to prison; innocent parties do not. On very good days, innocent parties do not even have to go to the trouble of hiring a lawyer and showing up in court. Law enforcement agencies correctly decide to spare them the burden (and potential agony) of proving their innocence before a judge or jury.

Boehner says won't hike debt ceiling without cuts
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Speaker of the House John Boehner said Tuesday he will not allow another increase of the debt ceiling without offsetting spending cuts.
"We shouldn't dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It's an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction," Boehner said in a speech to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Geithner warns Boehner not to play
with next deal to increase the debt ceiling
By Erik Wasson - TheHill.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday warned Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) against playing with the U.S. debt ceiling.
"This commitment to meet the obligations of the nation, this commitment to protect the creditworthiness of the country, is a fundamental commitment that you can never call into question or violate," Geithner said Tuesday in an address to the Peterson Foundation.

Jim [Rogers] Interview on Business Insider -
9th of May 2012

Meet the Man Who Controls More Money than Ben Bernanke
BY DAN COLLINS - FinancialSense.com
If you thought the U.S., E.U., and Japan were the only central banks printing fiat currency think again. There is new player at the table and he controls more money than Ben Bernanke.
The People's bank of China (PBoC), China's central bank is now the 800lb panda in terms of balance sheets. They have become the main provider of global liquidity with its total assets topping 28 trillion yuan (about $4.5 trillion dollars). By comparison, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet is a paltry $3.5 trillion dollars.

SEC Trade Halts, Best Buy Departure, Compliance
By Carla Main - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading in 379 shell companies over concern that fraudsters could hijack stocks to steal investor money.
The trading suspensions, the most by the SEC in a single day, stem from the work of an agency task force that identified clearly dormant microcap stocks in 32 states and at least six countries, the SEC said yesterday in a statement.
Microcap shares have long been used for frauds such as pump-and-dump schemes.

Inflation decelerating, but Fed won't pull trigger
Core inflation still heating up, limiting Fed flexibility
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Inflationary pressures are fading, just as Federal Reserve officials expected. But don't think that the decline in the inflation rate will automatically lead to further quantitative easing by the Fed.
The consumer price index was flat in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. And the CPI is expected to drop by at least 0.2% in May on account of the big drop in gasoline prices.

GOP plans fast track for tax overhaul
By Russell Berman and Bernie Becker - TheHill.com
Speaker John Boehner said in a speech Tuesday that House Republicans would try to attach a timeline to fast-track a broad tax overhaul to a vote extending the George W. Bush-era tax rates before the November elections.
The effort is part of a bid by the Speaker to get started early — and out in front of Democrats — on a raft of year-end tax and spending provisions that could await congressional action in a lame-duck session.

The Elite Believe That You Are Ruining Their Planet
And They Want You To Stop Reproducing
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Today, there are more than 7 billion people living on earth. For the global elite, that is problem number one. The vast majority of us don't spend much time thinking about global population issues, but for many among the elite it is an absolute obsession. Many of them truly believe that you are ruining their planet and they desperately want you to stop reproducing so much. Among the elite, the belief that the world is grossly overpopulated and that this is causing most of our major global problems crosses all political, cultural and social boundaries. This philosophy is taught as gospel at the vast majority of all colleges and universities on the planet, and it is being relentlessly pushed by the United Nations, the WHO, the World Bank and national governments all over the globe. When most people think of "overpopulation", they think of places such as India, but the truth is that those of us living in America are considered to be the worst offenders because our lifestyles are "polluting" the planet so rapidly. In fact, one scientist recently estimated that a child born in the United States has a "carbon legacy" 55 times greater than a child born in India. The elite are convinced that if they can reduce the global population far enough and get the remaining people living on earth to switch over to "sustainable lifestyles" that they will be able to save "their" planet. But the draconian measures that would be necessary to achieve this dystopian dream would not be very palatable to the vast majority of us. In fact, if the most radical population control advocates get their way, we will experience global tyranny on a scale never seen before.

Coast To Coast AM - 5-12-2012 -
Stan Deyo & Steve Quayle - Earth Changes
May 12th, 2012 edition of Coast To Coast AM, John B. Wells sits down with author and researcher, Steve Quayle, along with former undercover FBI agent, Stan Deyo, for a discussion and dissection regarding everything coming at us. End game is to REDUCE the population of the planet... Operation Mountain Lion: pounce, compress & destroy.

Why Older Americans
Have the Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
We have, on this site, focused like a laser beam on the job crisis for the young. But today, a compelling report from the GAO reminds us that among those who have lost a job, older Americans might just have it worse.
Actually, they absolutely have it worse. Americans over the age of 55 are the least likely to find another job and the most likely to take a significant pay cut for the next position.

Senate to vote on Ryan Medicare plan
By Sam Baker and Elise Viebeck - TheHill.com
The Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget plan, giving Democrats another chance to put their GOP counterparts on the record supporting Ryan's controversial Medicare proposal.
Senators will devote six hours to the budget debate Wednesday and vote on four Republican proposals — including Ryan's. His plan, which passed the House on a party-line vote in March, would partially privatize Medicare. Some of the program's federal funding would be converted into subsidies that seniors would use to buy private insurance.

Avoid Retirement Health-Care Mistakes
The typical health-care tab will run $240,000,
but could run much higher.
By ANDREA COOMBES - SmartMoney.com
Retirement health-care costs are enough to cause a severe anxiety attack. Even with Medicare benefits, a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2012 will spend at least $240,000 in retirement, according to the latest estimate from Fidelity Investments.
That doesn't include long-term-care costs, over-the-counter medications and most dental costs.
Plus, that $240,000 estimate is based on average life expectancy for a 65-year-old -- the husband living until age 82 and the wife until 85 -- but "average" means half of people live longer than that.
In other words, that 65-year-old couple may well need much more than $240,000.

GM to stop advertising on Facebook
By Peter Valdes-Dapena @PeterDrives
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- General Motors said Tuesday that it will stop paid advertising on Facebook.
The automaker says it will still be on the social networking site, it just won't be spending money to buy ads.
"We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed," GM said in a statement. "This happens as a regular course of business and it's not unusual for us to move things around various media outlets."

What Facebook's IPO and Treasurys Have in Common
By Jack Hough - SmartMoney.com
Facebook's forthcoming stock offering and United States Treasury notes would seem to occupy opposite ends of the risk-reward spectrum of investments. But the two share similarities.
The 10-year Treasury recently yielded 1.79%, not far from its historic low yield of 1.67% reached in September. Bond yields move opposite prices, so as buyers become more eager, yields fall. Since 1962, 10-year Treasurys carried an average yield of 6.7%.

Santelli Explains Why A Broke California
"Likes" A Hot Facebook IPO
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The unsurprising and yet depressingly real budget data from California today should shock no-one and CNBC's Rick Santelli provides the most succinct and even more saddening reality check on the situation this morning as he points out the $15.7 billion shortfall and how cuts and compromise will fill that gap. His sane response to the implicit rise in taxation that this compromise realistically requires will mean - happy feet as Californians leave the state. His rant is one of the best but a little later in the day, the problem appears to be on its way to being fixed by none other than the hoody-in-chief himself. According to Bloomberg, Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering likely will account for 20 percent of California's personal income growth this calendar year, the state fiscal analyst said.

New Video Surveillance Technology
Spots Crime Before it Happens
BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON, Defense and Technology Specialist,
Money Morning
Falling statistics aside, crime is still a national epidemic.
The truth is 1.2 million of us will fall victim to a rape, robbery or murder by the end of this year.
That adds up to 3,400 new crime victims each and every day--all year long.
Yet the odds are growing daily that video cameras will catch these ultra-violent thugs in the act.
The fact is the U.S. has roughly 30 million cameras watching banks, malls, factories and city streets manned by law enforcement, federal agents, the military, homeowners and private security.

Pentagon to address F-22 pilots' oxygen fears
By Kristina Wong-The Washington Times
Defense Secretary Defense Leon E. Panetta on Tuesday directed the Air Force to take measures addressing pilots' concerns about the F-22Raptor fighter jet's oxygen system.
First, the Air Force will install an automatic backup oxygen system in all of its F-22 fighters.
Second, all F-22 flights will remain close enough to potential landing locations to allow for quick recovery and landing, if needed.

Syrian rebels get influx of arms
with gulf neighbors' money, U.S. coordination
By Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly - WashingtonPost.com
Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.
Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

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