My morning mostly NFP-free reads:
• Dan Gross: May’s Jobs Report Disappoints Across the Board (Contrary Indicator)
• The New Fear Gauge: Treasury Yield (WSJ)
• Gold Poised For Worst Monthly Run In 11 Years On Europe (Bloomberg)
• On Facebook, ‘Likes’ Become Ads (NYT) see also Some teens aren’t liking Facebook as much as older users (LA Times)
• Banks Choose to Be Less Than Transparent on Europe (DealBook)
• The Drudge Headline Contrary Indicator (Bespoke)
• Investor Hazard: ‘Zombie Funds’ (WSJ)
• What Romney Needs to Be Elected (Forbes) see also Pity Those Media-Pummeled Republicans (MoJo) see also
• Lockdown: free/open OS maker pays Microsoft ransom for the right to boot on users’ computers (BoingBoing)
• Pluto-Killing Astronomer Wins Kavli Prize for Astrophysics (Wired)
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What are you reading?
Where the jobs are
Source: Economist
Category: Financial Press
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
That Boing Boing article is real BS. I’m sure fanbois will enjoy it, but can you imagine Steve Jobs giving these fanatics the time of day?
What happened is that the industry as a whole is moving to new bioses (sp?) that prevent rootkits from loading. Rootkits are a particularly hard-to-clean type of malware that loads before Windows or MacOS or whatever loads. Since it loads before the operating system, it can hide itself and is very difficult to detect, much less remove.
In order to prevent this problem, starting with Windows 8, Microsoft requires its hardware partners to follow the new spec and only allow a Microsoft-signed OS to boot normally by default. However, the hardware partners will put a software switch in the bios which allows booting Linux or other OS’s by turning off the feature for those who want to live dangerously. You’ve probably seen the “Press F2″ for setup which your machine is booting. It works something like that. Linux fanatics claim that the nerds who install this stuff will somehow have trouble finding and using the bios switch. Gimmee a break.
Linux fanatics have seized on this effort by MSFT to protect its users (which are over 90% of PC users), as some plot to destroy Linux, as if something used by 1 0r 2% of PC users needed destroying. Linux is the OS that has supposedly been going to take over the desktop every year for the past decade. I suppose in a hundred years it might be a danger to MSFT.
So MSFT is supposed to refuse to protect 9o+% of PC users to satisfy a few fanatics?
The kicker is that “Signing Authority,” i.e. a company with the credibilty to digitally sign software, will not fool with Linux. Gee, wonder why? So Fedora has a deal to pay MSFT $99 to get it’s software signed and seamlessly installable (if such a thing is possible for Linux) on the new machines. It’s really a discount deal and I’m sure MSFT did it to shut up the nuts. MSFT was apparently wrong. Here’s a less biased explanation by a rational person who was actually involved in the deal:
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html
This is what I’m reading Friday AM : Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,
Is China Running Out of Options?, China’s Multifaceted Coal Problem Check these out at
http://whydtinosbrowser.blogspot.ch/
Assorted JPM stuff including Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg
reporting that Morgan may be justifying mismatched self dealing marking values
by saying the CIO trades would not have to be sold or liquidated
this is likely accounting code for justifying an unmarked or hold to maturity price on the CIO trades
Bloomberg also reports Bruno Ikzil’s VAR was $40 billion,
biggest day was $60 bio equal to the entire investment bank
Bloomberg earlier this week confirmed this mismatched internal price i mentioned last week
and says rightly these are risk management practices that go right to the top, meaning Jamie
it is plausible that they are putting this Short CDS position in their unmarked investment book
and dont show losses while their internal fund subsidiary long position IS marked
and of course showing gains on this trade
i think it likely and Big Girl confirms that the Morgan hedge fund and those gains are not consolidated in the JPM corporate accounts
meanwhile JPM looks to be completely stalling and stonewalling
says they will show us eventually in the 2Q 10Q
regulators say they didn’t look at the deal, im sure they didnt but are they now?
i am not even sure who has the oversight
the FDIC probably cut out as it is at the corporate bank holding company level not in the “bank”
the Fed also tends not to get involved in nonbanking issues
the OCC maybe but they are completely useless
SEC? god help us then an f you stonewall will totally work
i cant get anything from my marking mismatch source so far about nature of the mismatch
Further evidence jamie personally prostituted and debased the good morgan riskmetrics approach
and risk management culture, i repeat i am shocked
i loved that complex VAR table in their filing footnotes
turns out its been turned into complete garbage
just to be clear the mismarked internal morgan self dealing is not the big lie. just the evidence that the ENTIRE CIO office trade was booked wrong. thats the big lie.
the billionaire city shows the flaws in the free market (or EMH) as some call it). seems to not going so well in their favorite city any more
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/billionaire-city-belies-capitalism-s-victories.html
Startling chart of Spanish bank private sector outflows:
http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/Snapshot-on-Spain-And-the-Money-Keeps-Rolling-Out.aspx
Abacus Bank Charged With Mortgage Fraud
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/nyregion/abacus-bank-charged-with-mortgage-fraud.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
Manhattan DA files indictment against small federal savings bank (7 NYC branches serving Chinese community) and 19 bank employees (7 already pleaded guilty and are cooperating). Crimes charged include conspiracy, grand larceny and mortgage fraud during the period 05/05 – 02/10.
Microsoft has INFILTRATED Fedora.
Possible under the table deal?
Promised stock options for the manager responsible?
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has used back room deals to grow marketshare, and control.
Barry, I know that you are not a big fan of gold, but…
http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/06/gold-and-jobs-report-if-you-only-knew.html
This is a play by MS to take 30% of your profit by doing essentially Nothing.
Apple is in on this scam too.
A slowdown in jobs, means less business demand, which means continued extremely low inflation, which should logically mean a Gold CRASH.
More crazy patent crap…
———–
The Vegas Strip Steak Patent
Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman
06/01/2012
http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/06/01/the-vegas-strip-steak-patent/
Remember the scene in Caddy Shack where the Bishop, after a putt says “Put me down for 5.” to his caddy, as another caddy holds up 10 while blinking with a big smirk on his face? Well that’s what today’s jobs numbers seem to be like to me.
announcer on news: “We only added 69,000 jobs (weatherman shakes his head in the background), as unemployment rose slightly to 8.2% (as weatherman holds up 10 fingers in the background).
excuse me that Ikzil VAR cited above was 40 million not 40 billion
shades of Dr evil
if you lose $3 bio and counting in a month or less on a total Ikzil position
with a calculated $40 million Value at Risk.
that would be 75 TIMES the maximum total Ikzil position daily loss in less than a month?
Note that $40 million is said to equal VAR for the entire morgan investment bank?
so one more once every million year risk?
A laughable result that good VAR
like Morgan used to have can actually avoid.
Jamie gutted it while touting his fortress balance sheet
which they had once upon a time
this is where deregulation electricity gets you. seems back when Texas did this, instead of the promised low price we ended up with high prices (not far from the highest in the nation. even though we have natural gas. and gas is bought by electric companies on long term contracts. so much for a market based electric market. but who knew when the companies proposed it. and the state bought it).
now we have the other half coming our way. since the low price of electricity isn’t driving the needed additional generating units, they will are thinking of allowing companies to cancel fix price contracts. and triple the cost of whole sale electricity!
http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2012/06/electricity-seen-prices-moving-in-the-right-direction-skyward/
time for a monetary regime change? last time was after the great depression. when the gold standard made the economy much worse (When the French government hoarded gold, its value increased. So in countries that defined their currencies in terms of gold, all other prices, including wages, had to drop. Labor markets tend to react badly to such downward price pressure, resulting in high unemployment and reduced output. A vicious circle then sets in: The economic pain calls into question the government’s commitment to staying on the gold standard, which encourages gold hoarding, which in turn raises the value of gold further and thus makes the pain worse. Only an actual departure from the gold standard made it possible to exit the trap)
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/300951/monetary-regime-change
so what do we do now?
so what do we do now?