Happy Holidays

             (Updates Resume January 5)

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (Reuters) - Investors in U.S.-based funds pulled $6.5 billion out of stock mutual funds in the week ended Wednesday, marking the biggest weekly outflows this year, on worries the U.S. Federal Reserve could scale back its bond purchases as soon as next week..

• Fu Shou Yuan, a chain of Chinese high-end graveyards, prices its $215m IPO at the top of its range, with the retail investor portion 670 times oversubscribed..
• China's extreme smog is forcing pilots to train for blind landings.

• The European Parliament has approved a series of crucial rules and steps towards the eventual completion of a “Banking” Union designed to close down failed banks in order to prevent banking crises. Under the terms, the cost of closing down a euro zone bank will initially be borne almost fully by its home country, but the obligations of euro zone partners will gradually rise to be shared equitably after 10 years.

• The U.S. household unemployment rate fell to a five-year low of 7 percent and nonfarm payrolls rose by 203,000 in November in a strong jobs report
• The U.S. economy grew at a 3.6% annual rate in the third quarter, faster than first reported and its strongest performance in 1 1/2 years.

• ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy In a sign of the influence the network holds with Republicans, it will be addressed by rising stars of the party including US senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the push for the recent government shutdown, and the party's budget guru, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

• Canada’s household debt rose to 163.7 % of disposable income in Q3, compared with 163.1 percent in the previous quarter. Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said that household debt represents the biggest threat to the Canadian economy, suggesting that he'd be cutting interest rates if he weren't worried of fueling more borrowing in a time of near record-high levels of household debt and an overheated housing market.

• The ICCO raised the cocoa production deficit to 160,000 from 52,000 tons. "World production of cocoa beans is now expected to be significantly lower than previously envisaged," the ICCO said, cutting its forecast for world output by 55,000 tons to 3.99m tons. Consumption was raised by 54,000 tonnes to 4.05m tonnes.

• Disney (DIS) raised the dividend by 15% to $0.86 Per Share

• Czarnikow said demand for sugar will gain 2.5 % this year, the biggest rate of growth since 2008, when global consumption rose 3.5%.

• In 2002, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimated that communication towers kill 4 million to 5 million birds per year, cars kill roughly 60 million, and cats kill hundreds of millions.

• The Chinese government said that it landed an unmanned space probe on the moon, joining the U.S. and Russia as the only nations to accomplish the feat.

• J.P Morgan lowered its forecasts on gold prices by 10% to $1,263 an ounce for 2014 and by 12% to $1,275 for 2015.

Next Update Dec. 15

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• The pending U.S. home sales index fell 0.6% to 102.1 and dropped to its lowest level since last December, the National Association of Realtors said.
• Because of the 16-day republican/tea instigated government shutdown, sales of U.S. Existing Homes dropped 3.2% to a 5.12 million annual rate, the fewest since June.

• Eurozone jobless rate stands at 12.1% in Oct.

• Israeli stock prices rose to another record high last Sunday, ignoring local politicians' comments that a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program was a mistake.

• European Central Bank member Joerg Asmussen said the ECB, which cut interest rates to a record low earlier, was ready to take further action if necessary and instruments at its disposal included negative deposit rates.

• Ukraine bowing to pressure from Russia is the first major defeat for the EU in its eastward march since the fall of Communism.

• Swiss vote down plan to cap salaries of top executives.

• China and Japan appeared to be a step closer to a military confrontation that could drag in the United States, after Beijing extended its air-defense zone over a group of islands that is also claimed by Tokyo..

• Japan's central bank kept its ultra-loose monetary policy in place and says the economy is on track for a "moderate recovery”.
• YoY Japan's consumer prices increased by 0.9% in October, marking the fastest growth in five years and signaling possible exit from deflation.

• U.S. regulators are considering whether to give banks more time to comply with the Volcker rule, which bans them from gambling with their own money, Fed Vice-Chair Janet Yellen said.

• The equation is simple: (more U.S. imports) = (fewer U.S. jobs) A report by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that America's trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2011 eliminated a net 2.7 million U.S. jobs.

• India's July-Sept. GDP grew 4.8 %

• Bloomberg forecasts China to pass India in Gold purchases and projects a 29% growth in Chinas gold purchase for 2013.

• GE turns to 3D Printers for plain parts

Next Update Dec. 1

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• The European Commission has exercised historic new EU powers allowing it to revise national budgets for the first time.

• (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a controversial bill on Tuesday that would delay two government regulators from adopting rules requiring stock brokers and retirement account financial advisers to put their customers' interests ahead of their own.

• (USA Today) Most Americans say past global warming has been caused largely by human activities — ranging from a low of 65% in Utah to a high of 92% in Rhode Island. Most also back government curbs on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants — from 62% in Utah to 90% in New Hampshire.

• (Reuters) - Carbon dioxide injected into oil and gas wells may have caused a series of minor earthquakes in Texas long before the adoption of current hydraulic fracking.

• Deforestation in the Amazon increased by nearly a third over the past year, according to Brazilian government figures released on Thursday.

• The Environmental Protection Agency proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply for the first time. December corn fell 4.5 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $4.22 a bushel.

• Australia’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low and said a lower currency will be needed to achieve balanced growth.

• Crime rates will soar, economies will stagnate and Europe's social fabric will deteriorate if policymakers do not act to address youth unemployment, World Economic Forum report warns.

• General Electric Co (GE) will spin off its credit card business next year into a separately traded company as it tries to reduce its exposure to unpredictable financial businesses and return to its manufacturing roots.

• In Q3 Windows Phone accounted for nearly 10 % of all Smartphone sales in the EU 5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom), research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said. That's a double YoY - largely due to sales of Nokia's Lumia handsets.

• The board of directors of Kimberly-Clark (KMB) has proposed a spin-off of its healthcare business in order to focus on its consumer and professional brands.

Next Update Nov. 17

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• Southern Europe is on a precipice Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 

• The Chicago purchasing managers index rose to 65.9% in October, the best performance since March 2011.

• At $680 billion, the U.S. federal government's latest annual deficit is the smallest since 2008.

• Globalstar (GSAT) NPRM To Enable Terrestrial Broadband Network in Licensed MSS Spectrum

• U.S. home prices posted their strongest gain in August for more than seven years, according to S&P/ Case-Shiller Home Price Indices the 10-City and 20-City Composites posted a 12.8% growth rate YoY, the highest increases since February 2006.

• Starbuck’s raised its quarterly dividend 24% to 26 cents a share.

• Eurozone's CPI is at a 4-year low in September

• Spain Retail Sales (YoY) improves to 2.2% in September from -4.5% in August

• Iran's inflation hits 36.2%

• YoY Indonesia's inflation eases to 8.32% in Oct

• World Bank: ‏Over the next 20 yrs, South Asia countries will add 1 million new people to the global labor force every month.

• YoY Asia's cocoa grindings rose 12% to 161,097 tonnes in Q3, while North American cocoa grindings rose 8.25% to their highest since at least 2009.

Next Update Nov. 3

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• (NYT) China has become shrill in its criticism of the fiscal train wreck in the United States, arguing that the answer to a potential government default is to begin creating a “de-Americanized world.”..
• Fitch placed the triple A credit rating of the US on negative watch.
• One-month Treasury bills maturing on October 31 shot up 21 basis points to a new debt ceiling peak of 53 bps

• Brazil raised rates for fifth straight time since April bringing it close to double digits.

• The International Cocoa Organization is lifting its forecast for a Cocoa  deficit to 86,000 tons. It warned, "We are going to be in a deficit for the next four years, but closer to 50,000 to 60,000 tons".

• Accepting USDA's soybean numbers puts stocks to use at 4.5%; one of the tightest on record, with a very tight 2013-14 balance sheet

• Microsoft received 37,196 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies during the first six months of 2013.

• (Esquire} The War on Drugs Is Over. Drugs Won "The war on drugs could not have been a bigger failure. To sum up their most important findings, the average purity of heroin and cocaine has increased, respectively, 60% and 11% between 1990 and 2007. Cannabis purity is up a whopping 161% over that same time"

Next Update October 15/16

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• Obama urged Republican/Tea to stop political brinkmanship on gov't funding and debt limit in order to avert self-inflicted wounds to economy.

• The Dow and S&P 500 set record highs on Fed's "no taper" decision.

• MoM existing U.S. Home Sales Beat Expectations rising 1.7% September

• US Philly Fed business index 22.3vs 10.0 exp

• (Reuters) - China could import 20-30 million tonnes of corn a year to cover growing supply shortages, a researcher with a government think tank said on Thursday, as much as four times current levels.

• (Bloomberg) Global cocoa demand will outstrip supply by 209,000 metric tons in the season ending Sept. 30, estimates KnowledgeCharts, a unit of Commodities Risk Analysis in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. That is bigger than the 52,000-ton deficit forecast by the International Cocoa Organization in London. The shortage next season will amount to 188,000 tons.

• 27% of Americans say now is a good time to find a quality job, up from 21 % in August. The figure is the highest since January 2008. At the same time, lower-income Americans' optimism has faded; with 19% saying now is a good time to find a quality job.

• Argentina’s economy grew 8.3% in Q2.

• The US National Security Agency (NSA) has posted an ad for a "Civil Liberties & Privacy Officer".

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed limits on carbon pollution from new fossil fuel (coal) power plants. The move, if successful, would be the first major step by the U.S. to limit greenhouse gas emissions from this sector.

• The Czech Republic became the latest EU member to denounce subsidies for clean but costly renewable energy and pledged to double down on its use of fossil fuels.

• Results from a referendum in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino showed that 65% of the electorate backed a proposal to forbid the covering of faces in public areas by any group.

• The Sunday Assembly—the London-based “Atheist Church” grew at 3,000% since January, a rate that might make this non-religious Assembly the fastest growing church in the world”.

Next Update  Sep. 15   Sep. 22

Jerry Brown's Tough-Love California Miracle "He preceded Al Gore," says Tom Hayden, the counterculture icon whom Brown appointed as the first chairman of his solar-energy council. "He's out there with solar beanies and rooftop collectors, and it's 1974 and people think he's a lunatic."

   “But I’ m not habituated – I disrupt my own thought pattern every day. I have learned to disbelieve almost everything I think!”

QUICK OVERVIEW

• MoM U.S. consumer sentiment declined to 82.1 from July’s 85.1.
• Chicago PMI rose to 53.0 from 52.3 in July.
• Consumer spending barely rose in July, the first month of the third quarter, indicating little change in the U.S. economy's mild pace of growth.

• China returning to full speed? China official manufacturing PMI rises to 51 in August a 16 month high.

• The United States' High Plains Aquifer — a vast underground reservoir that stretches through eight states, from South Dakota to Texas, and supplies 30 percent of the nation's irrigated groundwater — could be used up within 50 years, unless current water use is reduced, a new study finds.

• NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Emails The NSA is a "supercomputing powerhouse" with machines so powerful their speed is measured in thousands of trillions of operations per second… But ask the NSA, to do a seemingly simple search of its own employees' email? The agency says it doesn’t have the technology…
• However, a document seen by SPIEGEL reveals that the NSA  spied successfully on the French Foreign Ministry and news broadcaster Al Jazeera - the technology worked fine.

• The Most Efficient Health Care Systems in The World: among the 48 countries included in the Bloomberg study, the U.S. ranks 46th, outpacing just Serbia and Brazil - worse than China, Algeria, and Iran.

• Radiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.

• (MarketWatch) -- August was the worst outflow month in more than three years for U.S. exchange-traded products, according to preliminary data from No. 1 ETFs provider BlackRock Inc. U.S. ETFs saw $16.1 billion in redemptions through Thursday, representing the biggest outflow in one month since $17.1 billion exited in January 2010. The largest ETF was the main driver, as the SPDR S&P 500 endured $13 billion in August outflows, BlackRock said.

• (Guardian) General patterns suggest that internet users in the UK deliberately access online pornography more frequently than they access all social networking sites put together..

• (Reuters) - British manufacturers are planning the fastest increase in capital investment in the year ahead since before the financial crisis, a survey showed, suggesting the economy could be heading for a more balanced recovery.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Purchases of new U.S. homes fell 13.4 % in July, the most in more than three year.

• Consumer confidence in both the euro area and the European Union (EU) rose in August, from minus 17.4 in July to minus 15.6.

• German economy expanded by 0.7% in Q2 of 2013 compared with the previous.

• QoQ Britain's GDP rose by 0.7 % Eurozone PMI rises to 51.7 in August

• Soybeans are focused on current weather forecasts (dry) and the perceptions that US production potential is sliding. More upside potential exists, but it is based on weather development.

• On 8/12/13 Kochi Japan hit 41C (105.8F). That's the hottest temperature ever recorded in Japan.

• India’s July exports rose 11.6% YoY

• The Singapore-based Cocoa Association of Asia said that processing rose 2% to 153,792 metric YoY. Analysts and traders expected a decrease.
• The European Cocoa Association said on July 15 that grindings rose 6.1% in Q2. Cocoa Demand will exceed output by 119,000 metric tons in the 12 months starting in October, the first shortage in four years, according to Macquarie Group. However, hedge fund bets on higher prices are near a five-year high..

• The World Gold Council sees Q2 Global gold demand at 856.3 tons - down 12% YoY to a 4-year low on liquidation from gold ETFs.

• (Spiegel) Most in Britain seem unconcerned about the mass surveillance carried out by its intelligence agency GCHQ. Even the intimidation tactics being used on the Guardian this week have caused little soul-searching. The reason is simple: Britons blindly and uncritically trust their secret service.

Next Update July 25

Wall Street's Biggest Institutions Are Testing Quantitative Software for Non-Quants

"You literally press a button, say 'run the study,' and then [Robotrage] uses cloud computing capacity – it allocates to you that capacity – and it runs the study for you,

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The US economy added 162,000 jobs in July, slightly below expectations, but the unemployment rate fell to 7.4 %.
• U.S initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 19,000 to 326,000, the fewest since January 2008, from a revised figure of 345,000 for the previous week.
• U.S. economy grew 1.7% in Q2 U.S. personal income rose 0.3 % in June, after a 0.4 % gain in May
• U.S. personal consumption expenditures rose 0.5 % in June, after an increase of 0.2 % in May.
• U.S. savings rate, personal saving as a % of disposable personal income, edged down to 4.4% in June from 4.6% in the previous month, but remained well above the 2.1% average savings rate for all of 2007 before the financial crisis.

• The United States Trade Representative (USTR), to whom the White House has delegated the authority to veto ITC rulings, has decided to veto an early-June ITC ruling, which would otherwise have taken effect on Monday, to ban the importation of older iPhones and iPads into the United States market over a Samsung declared-essential patent

• China's PMI for the manufacturing sector improved slightly to 50.3% in July from 50.1% in June, above the boom-bust line of 50% for 10 months in a row.
• China's non-manufacturing PMI rebounds to 54.1 % in July

• An advanced computer numerical control (CNC) machine tool was shipped to Germany from China in the country's first export of cutting-edge equipment to a developed economy.

• Eurozone jobless rate remains at record high of 12.1% in June
• Eurozone consumer price inflation stays at 1.6% in July

• The British economy to grow 1.2% in 2013

• Indonesia's economy grows by 5.81 % in Q2

• The Danish Meteorological Institute is reporting that on Tuesday, July 30, the mercury rose to 25.9 C (78.6 F) at a station in Greenland, the highest temperature measured in the Arctic country since records began in 1958.

• Saudi website editor gets 7 years in prison and 600 lashes.

• FBI can remotely activate Android and laptop microphones, reports WSJ

• A Swedish sociology professor named Stefan Svallfors has nominated NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for a Nobel Peace Prize.

James Galbraith on Social Breakdown and Financial Stress in Europe  JG: I think that ultimately the decision on the future of Europe will be made in Germany, and Germany has to decide, does it want it or not? If it wants it, it has to take minimal steps to stabilize it on the same principles on which they stabilized the East, and on which they built the Federal Republic in the first place. And if they don’t want it, well, it will go away.
RS: I think even if they want it, they’re not going to stabilize it.
JG: In which case they’ll lose it, and then we can see what is left. But when it’s lost, Germany’s going to have the problem it had before of an appreciating currency, and an industry that quickly loses competitiveness, and there’ll be higher unemployment. And its markets will have collapsed and its debts won’t get paid.
Germany is not going to escape the consequences of this. Again, it’s a choice that Germans can, and I’m sure, will make. But what is necessary is to state clearly what the choice actually is.

Next Update Aug. 4

Goldman Sachs aluminum scandal could roil financials and commodity prices this week ..Goldman and other financial players has cost American consumers more than $5 billion over the last three years..

Rolls-Royce Revives Age of Sail to Beat Fuel-Cost Surge: Freight Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc (RR/), best known for powering planes from Concorde to the Airbus superjumbo, is working on a modern-day clipper ship as it bets on emissions curbs to jack up bunker-fuel costs and herald a new age of sail.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The Group of 20 nations pledged on Saturday to put growth before austerity, seeking to revive a global economy.
• The Group of Twenty (G20) nations will back a global taxation reform, which will help avoid double taxation.

• German austerity chief, finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble has warned Greek leaders not to play with fire by pressing for fresh debt-relief. He urged Greeks not to back track from their painful austerity and reform path. What’s the problem? You Greek’s don’t like 28.2% unemployment - too high?

• Investors, fearing that the end of the commodity super cycle of ever-rising prices are heightened by China’s slowdown, are heading for the exits.

• U.S. Fed chief emphasizes bond purchases could yet be accelerated if economic recovery shows signs of faltering. Bernanke said there are three main reasons for the rise in longer-term interest rates, which he thought was relatively low. He cited better economic news as the first reason. "As investors see brighter prospects ahead, interest rates tend to rise," Second reason is probably the "unwinding of leverage, and the third reason, is related to the Fed's communications and market interpretations of Fed policy. "But I want to emphasize that none of that implies that monetary policy will be tighter at any time within the foreseeable future," he said.

• Moody's Investors Service lifted its outlook on the U.S. government bond rating to stable from negative and reaffirmed the U.S. government's Aaa rating.

• (FT) US banks have lost billions of dollars of paper profits on their securities portfolios as market interest rates rise. Data released by the Federal Reserve on Friday showed unrealised gains in these portfolios had plummeted from more than $40bn at the beginning of the year to about $6bn

• The U.S. home builder sentiment index gained 6 points to 57 this month, the highest level since January of 2006, according to the National Association of Home Builders Any reading over 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good rather than poor.
• U.S Privately-owned housing starts in June dropped 9.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 836,000, its lowest level since August last year.

• Wildfires are chewing through twice as many hectares a year on average in the US compared with 40 years ago, US Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a Senate hearing.

• U.S. Automakers are thriving – Detroit however files for bankruptcy: U.S. automaker General Motors Co. said that it sold 4.85 million vehicles globally in the first half of 2013, up 3.9% YoY. "Can we help Detroit? We don't know," Vice President Joe Biden said in response to a reporter's question about a possible federal rescue.

• Chinas Industrial Output rose 8.9% YoY
• China Q2 GDP up 7.5 % YoY

• Spain's public debt rose to 89.6% of GDP in May

•  (Pritchard) If you think, China's Communist Party fully understands the mess it has created by ramping credit to 200pc of GDP and running the greatest investment bubble know to man, read its shockingly complacent response to warnings from the International Monetary Fund.

Next Update July 21

With its 41-megapixel camera, (NOK) Nokia’s Lumia 1020 absolutely brings the wow factor, proving that Nokia can innovate with the very best - that it is a mobile force to be reckoned with!


Go to 37:30 of the presentation and check out the needle-in-a-haystack – Remarkable!

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Markets have overreacted to the likelihood that the U.S. Federal Reserve will taper its quantitative easing policy, or QE, HSBC said in its quarterly equity insights research released on Friday. "The lesson of history is that the first tightening in a cycle -- as long as it comes because risks to growth have diminished, not because of inflation or structural worries -- typically causes only a short-lived correction in stocks," the bank said.

• The US figures showed the economy had gained nearly 200,000 jobs in June, and a revision of previous low estimates saw an extra 70,000 added in April and May. However, the unemployment rate stays unchanged at 7.6%.

• Marine Le Pen vows to smash the existing order of Europe and break-up the Euro if she wins the next election.

• Ukraine anticipates a 25% increase in wheat output this year

• The European system of carbon trading has practically collapsed as politicians prioritize the economy over the environment.

• The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index showed a 12% increase in prices in 20 cities from April 2012 to April 2013, the largest gain since early 2006, when home values began to level off in advance of the market collapse.

• The IMF is preparing to suspend aid payments to Greece by the end of next month unless Eurozone leaders plug a €3bn-€4bn shortfall that has opened up in Greece’s €172bn rescue program.

• Bernanke says US central bank could start slowing asset-purchase scheme later this year and end it by mid-2014.

• Car sales are down 10% in Austria, France and Germany, and 47% in Romania. The European market has contracted by a quarter from its heyday before the debt crisis and the fiscal squeeze.

• China's shadow banking system is out of control and under mounting stress as borrowers struggle to roll over short-term debts, Fitch Ratings has warned.

• The CBO concludes that immigrants will generate additional tax payments over the next decade and reduce the U.S. deficit…

• Several former Bank of America employees filed declarations in a federal court claiming the mortgage lender told them to lie to customers seeking loan modifications...

• The flash HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 48.3 in June from 49.2 in May, the weakest in nine months.

• Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said that the government will trim its 2013 budget by 15 billion reales (or 6.7 billion U.S. dollars).

• According to the Italian central bank, national public debt reached 127% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, up from 120.8% in 2011, placing the country second in the European Union (EU) after Greece.

• A mother of seven, Ursula von der Leyen is Germany's labor minister and a role model for women juggling demanding careers with family commitments. In an interview, the 54-year-old has some advice for young people struggling to find work. How best to solve Europe's youth unemployment crisis? Make young people learn English.

Nex Update July 7

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (FT) Markets often put a different slant on central bankers’ words than was intended, thus when Mr. Bernanke said ‘tapering’ the markets heard ‘tightening’

• The IMF on Friday urged the US to repeal sweeping federal budget cuts that will be a severe drag on economic growth this year. (Teabags not listening)

• U.S. producer prices up 0.5% in May and 1.7% YoY

• U.S. Industrial production was unchanged in May. The sector has seen little growth since the turn of the year, the Fed said

• The troubled city of Detroit will stop making payments on a portion of its unsecured municipal bond debt Friday, according to a report in the WSJ.

• China worried that tightening could trigger capital flight and set off debt crisis, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

• The World Bank cut its global growth forecast for this year after emerging markets from China to Brazil slowed more than projected, while U.S budget cuts and slumping investor confidence in Europe’s are not helpful.

• Emerging markets risk an interest rate shock once the US Federal Reserve and other Western authorities start to withdraw global liquidity, the World Bank has warned.

• U.S. Banks repossessed 38,946 homes, an increase of 11% MoM. The number of homes hit with default notices for the first time grew by 4% (US housing might not be as strong as advertised)

• Fed's Beige Book business survey shows "modest to moderate growth" across U.S

• The Dow Transports, adjusted by the CPI, are in new high ground. Industrials, S&P etc are still lagging.

•  (FT) Gabon is planning to take assets back from three international oil companies including a subsidiary of China’s Sinopec in a sign of Africa’s growing assertiveness as competition intensifies for its natural resources.

• (Spiegel) There are more journalists in prison in Turkey than in any other country.

• Germany's high court made clear that it was skeptical of the ECB's program to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign bonds from struggling euro-zone member states. It could strike down the most successful tool in combating the crisis.

• The USDA trimmed corn production just 1%, to 14.005 billion bushels, well ahead of the market consensus. Traders had expected a drop of 2.2%. Ending stocks also surpassed market expectations. The USDA pegged 2013/14 corn ending stocks at 1.95 billion bushels, down from May but still the largest in eight years, and more than 8 % larger than the 1.8 billion traders expected.

• This year the world will eat 112m tonnes of pork. Around half will be munched in Chinese mouths, according to the Agricultural Outlook report from the FAO and the OECD, a rich country club. The Chinese have been the world's biggest meat-eaters for over two decades. Pork is their favourite: each person scoffs about 38kg a year, compared with 28kg swallowed by Americans.

• (FT) Sharp drop in availability of scrap copper has caught the attention of some hedge funds and traders, making them bullish about the red metal

Gangsta Government by WILLIAM O'CONNOR“I’ll let you have the $10,000 for three points. That’s only because I know you.” I’m listening to Tony yak, my Shylock. Yak, yak has earned the moniker. He never gives his mouth a rest. Yak’s giving me the loan at street price: $30 for every $1,000. That’s “juice.” Every week I’ll pay $300, but nothing comes off the top.

Elizabeth Warren’s QE for Students by ELLEN BROWN On July 1, interest rates will double for millions of students – from 3.4% to 6.8% – unless Congress acts

Next Update June 16

QUICK OVERVIEW

• YoY U.S. House prices rose 10.9% in March, the biggest increase since the height of the housing boom in 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. MoM the Case-Shiller index rose 1.1 % in March. Phoenix and San Francisco led the YoY gains, up 22.5% and 22.2%, respectively.

• I am very recently retired from an Intel (INTC) position as chip design engineer with more than 30 years of varied experience in a wide swath of technologies and companies, and I have been a part of at least six startups. I have 27 US patents to my name..Without further ado, I can state with certainty that the new mobile oriented processors coming from Intel later this year will capture the processor space for the leading smartphones and tablets.

• Wolfgang Schäuble sounded almost like a new convert extolling the wonders of heaven as he raved about his latest conclusions on the subject of saving the euro. "We need more investment, and we need more programs," the German finance minister announced.

• The preliminary or "flash" version of the HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index for China fell to a seven-month low of 49.6, down from April's final reading of 50.4. A result below 50 signals contraction.

• Minutes from the U.S. central bank's latest policy-setting meeting showed that a "number" of Fed officials were willing to taper QE as soon as the next meeting in June.

• Forget environmental concerns: When it comes to fracking, Germans are worried about how it might affect beer quality. In a letter to several ministries in Berlin, brewers expressed concern that the exploitation of shale gas could contaminate water supplies and thus violate the beer purity law of 1516.

• (FT) An aggressive EU attempt to combat unfair competition from China was seriously undermined when Germany led a majority of the bloc’s members to oppose punitive duties on imported Chinese solar panels.

• Hong Kong-based Shuanghui International agreed to pay $7.1bn (a 31% premium to the closing price on Tuesday) for America's Smithfield Foods, in a deal aimed at US supplies for the growing demand of pork by China's increasingly wealthy consumers..

Next Update June 3

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (Bloomberg) Americans’ confidence in the economy climbed in May to the highest level in almost six years as rising real estate values and record stock prices boosted household wealth.
•  The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 83.7, the highest since July 2007.
• U.S. housing starts were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 853,000 last month. The level was 16.5% below the revised March estimate, but was 13.1% higher than the level in April 2012.
• U.S. Leading indicators rose 0.6% last month after falling a revised 0.2% in March

• Japans GDP rose by 0.9% in the three months to March, or 3.5 % YoY (Bloomberg) --

• The U.S. budget deficit will shrink by the end of fiscal 2013 to $642 billion, the smallest shortfall in five years,
• U.S. Household debt, as a proportion of income, declined from 130% in 2007 to 105 % at the end of 2012.

• In the same period, Eurozone household debt has risen from 100% to almost 110%.

• French GDP shrank 0.2% in the three months through March, following a revised 0.2% contraction in the previous quarter.

• Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes have backed up a bit of late, but at 1.9% they are still just over one -third the 5.4% earnings per share yield of the S&P 500.

• South Koreas Unemployment rate was 3.25 in April, down 0.3% point from a month earlier.

• YoY German CPI rose by 1.2% last month.
• The German economy, Europe’s largest, narrowly avoided recession expanding a measly 0.1% in Q1.

• France, the second-largest economy in the euro zone, is back in recession - contracting 0.2%.

• Greek unemployment hits new record high of 27% in February.

• Advanced Cell Technology (ACTC) confirmed that the vision of a patient enrolled in a clinical investigation of the company’s retinal pigment epithelial cells derived from human embryonic stem cells has improved from 20/400 to 20/40 following treatment.

Next Update May 19

Along the road of idiocy

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• U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 165,000 last month and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5 %.

• American International Group (AIG) investors hoping for a dividend and a buyback this year may be in luck, though the dividend seems more likely. CEO Robert Benmosche repeats on the company's first-quarter conference call that the dividend is something that could happen after AIG completes the sale of its plane-lease unit in coming weeks

• India cut  the benchmark lending rate by 0.25 points to 7.25%
• India's government reserves may soon be deposited with commercial banks to boost lending.

• The European Central Bank cut its main refinancing rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.5 per cent.

• YoY Japans household spending rose 5.2 % in March, in price-adjusted real terms a nine year high, as "Abenomics" gains momentum.

• At the end of 2012, U.S. household wealth rose to $66.1 trillion, close to the pre-recession peak of $67.4 trillion.

• Europe will enforce the world's first continent-wide ban on widely used insecticides (neonicotinoid pesticides) linked to serious harm in bees.

• U.K. avoids triple-dip recession as economy expands by 0.3% in Q1

• U.S. Pending Home Sales Index rose 1.5% to 105.7.
• Existing U.S. Home Sales fell 0.6 % to a 4.92 million annual rate.
• U.S. Feb. S&P/Case-Shiller home prices rose 9.3%

• YoY U.S. April consumer confidence index rose to 68.1 from 61.9

• The U.S. Labor Department said that the number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits last week fell by 16,000 to 339,000.

• As recession continues to sap the Eurozone and wider EU, the Eurostat data agency reported an extra 62,000 people joining unemployment queues in just four weeks in the 17-nation Eurozone as the jobless rate climbed for the 23rd consecutive month -- hitting 12.1% in March.

• Germany will grow by a meager 0.5% this year, the government said

• A bunch of weak manufacturing data from America, Europe and Asia has cast serious doubts on the strength of the global economy

• ARM Holdings ( ARMH) reported Q1 better-than-expected revenue, up 26% YoY

• (YUM) Yum Brands Inc., owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, reported its first-quarter profit fell 27% to $337 million, or 72 cents a share. (China’s avian/chicken flue problem)

• ATT  (T) said that earnings rose 3% for Q1.

• Costco (COST) raised the quarterly dividend 12.7% to $0.31 from $0.275 per share

• Chevron (CVX) increased its quarterly dividend for the 26th year in a row, to $1 a share, up 11% from 90 cents, for a 3.4% yield.

• Akamai (AKAM) earned $0.51 a share on revenue of $386 million. That was better than the consensus estimates for $0.46

• Qualcomm (QCOM) said its second quarter earnings would be lower than analyst forecasts, as the company faces stiffer competition from smaller rivals, especially in Asia.

• UPS profit rose 7 % in the quarter.

• China Wireless Technologies said it will pass Samsung Electronics and Lenovo Group to become China's leading cell phone company.  

• Taiwan reported the first case of bird flu outside mainland China.

• Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan bought gold just before it plummeted.

• Brazil's unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in March

Next Update May 5

More  on Rogoff & Reinhart  from Harvard - Harvard I tell ya

..They have  done a great deal of damage to the world!

And thank you Mr. Herndon!

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• The Group of 20 (G20) major economies on Friday pledged further actions to shore up growth while watching for monetary easing effects.

• Reports that Cyprus could sell a significant volume of gold may have triggered the sharp drop in prices, but we believe the fall represents a changing sentiment towards the metal," said Fitch

• Dutch unemployment increased to 8.1% in March from 7.7% in February. This is the highest number of unemployed people since the CBS started measuring unemployment in the 1980s.

• The IMF predicts the Spanish economy would shrink 1.6% in 2013, and the country's unemployment rate would peak at 27% this year before dropping to 26.5% in 2014 when its economy is predicted to grow 0.7%

• German car sales fell 17% in March.
• The indicator of economic sentiment for Germany fell by 12.2 points and stood at a level of 36.3 points.

• U.S. housing starts were at an annual rate of 1.04 million - 7.0% above the revised February estimate of 968,000, and up 46.7% YoY. This represented the highest level since June 2008.

• Fitch has downgraded the United Kingdom's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. The Outlook is Stable.

• Focusing on immediate economic concerns over future environmental ones, the European Parliament rejected a proposal to cut the number of pollution permits.

• Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) has raised its quarterly dividend 7%, marking the 57th consecutive year that the world's largest consumer-products company has boosted its payout.

• (Guardian) Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centers, which study food insecurity, said: "Food production will have to rise 60% by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand.

• From the great State of Texas  Republican congressman Joe Barton comes this quote "I would point out that if you are a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the great flood was an example of climate change," Barton told a congressional hearing "That certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

• (Pritchard) Portugal's leading elder statesman has called on the country to copy Argentina and default (Telegraph)

• The Dutch government is to postpone some austerity measures, in a significant break away from EU policy that risks angering Germany.

• (FT) Haruhiko Kuroda has announced his arrival as governor of the Bank of Japan by introducing a “new phase of monetary easing”, doubling Japan’s monetary base through aggressive purchases of long-term government bonds and risk assets.

• (Science Daily) A genetic analysis of the avian flu virus responsible for at least nine human deaths in China portrays a virus evolving to adapt to human cells, raising concern about its potential to spark a new global flu pandemic…the new strain could be treated with another clinically relevant antiviral drug, oseltamivir

• (NZH) A 17-year-old girl has exposed Islamic sex tourism in India where Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa are buying one-month wives for sex.

Why America Forgot A Horrific Terrorist Attack On Wall Street In 1920 I set out to write that book because I came across a mention of the 1920 bombing, which killed 38 people and injured hundreds more people, many of them quite seriously. I was shocked that I had never heard of this. What's going on that allowed this big event to be lost to history?

Cyprus bail-out vote stirs fresh jitters as slump fears grow in Europe Europe’s policy elites are increasingly on the back foot after furious controversy this week over a Harvard paper widely cited as the intellectual justification for austerity. (See below)

The Excel Depression  ... what really matters isn’t what they meant to say, it’s how their work was read: Austerity enthusiasts trumpeted that supposed 90 percent tipping point as a proven fact and a reason to slash government spending even in the face of mass unemployment.

Next Update April 21

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• The deaths of two men in Shanghai from a strain of bird flu have raised the specter of a new epidemic.

• The head of Cyprus' influential Orthodox Church has dealt a hammer blow to the island's economic leaders by becoming the first major figure to call for their resignations.

• Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister has said about North Korea: “The situation could simply get out of control, it is slipping toward the spiral of a vicious cycle,”.

• U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in March. Sentiment edged up to a four- month high of 78.6 in March from 77.6 in the previous month.
• U.S. Existing home sales rose 0.8% to an annual rate of 4.98 million in February. The sales rate was the highest since November 2009
• U.S. economy rose 0.4% in Q4

• Japan's consumer prices fell 0.3% in February
• Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4. 3% in February from 4.2% the previous month
• Japan's retail sales accelerated their drop in February, falling 2.3% YoY after a 1.1% fall the previous month

• Portugal's public debt reaches 123.6 % of GDP

• Spain's economy to contract by 1.5 % in 2013

• Climate change denying Chris Stewart (R-Utah) to head subcommittee on Climate Change.

• (Telegraph) Japan has extracted natural "ice" gas from methane hydrates beneath the sea off its coasts in a technological coup, opening up a super-resource that could meet the country's gas needs for the next century and radically change the world's energy outlook.

• Russia and South Africa plan OPEC-style cartel for platinum and palladium.http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/metals/welcome_to_the_page_about_palladium.htm

• U.S. Insider selling has risen to 6.3 sells for every buy - eight year high.

• (Spiegel) As the euro crisis wears on, the tough austerity measures implemented in ailing member states are resulting in serious health issues, a study revealed. Mental illness, suicide rates and epidemics are on the rise, while access to care has dwindled.

• (Spiegel) Twelve years ago, Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users. Since then, those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin go unindicted and possession is a misdemeanor on par with illegal parking. Experts are pleased with the results.

• More than half of the rivers and streams in the United States are in poor biological health, unable to support healthy populations of aquatic insects and other creatures, according to a nationwide survey.

• The US Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar flushing it out in patients' urine.

Next Update March 31

Daylight robbery in Cyprus will come to haunt EMU One's first reflex is to gasp at the stupidity of the EU policy elites, but truth is that most EU officials handling the Cyprus crisis know perfectly well that their masters have just set the slow fuse on a powder keg – and they can only pray that it is slow.

Now check this out!          NOK

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• (The Verge) Cody Wilson, who heads 3D printed firearms group Defense Distributed, has apparently received a federal firearms license officially allowing him to manufacture or sell the group's guns.

• Europe braced for renewed turmoil with outrage in Cyprus over an unprecedented levy on bank deposits. Depositors in Cypriot banks will be hit with a one-off tax on their savings, marking the first bailout for any eurozone country in which depositors will directly lose money. Holders of bank accounts with more than 100,000 euros will be taxed at 9.9 percent, and an additional 6.75 percent levy will be imposed on deposits below that level, raising an expected 5.8 billion euros for the Mediterranean island. And in the process risking a bank run!

• U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a 15-month low in March. The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment,edged down to 71. 8 in March from 77.6 MoM.
• U.S. nonfarm payroll grew by 236,000 in February, and unemployment rate edged down 0.2% to 7.7%

• (Bloomberg) Chinese anger over pollution becomes main cause of social unrest.

• Swiss voters have backed an initiative to give shareholders of Swiss listed companies a binding say on executive pay

• QCOM raised its quarterly dividend by 40% to 35 cents a share

• 46% of Americans believe in creationism.

• (Bloomberg) More than 4,700 workers at the Hanford reservation in Washington State where six tanks are leaking radioactive waste are facing furloughs or layoffs under $171 million in U.S. budget cuts, the Energy Department said.

• Wealth Inequality in America (WSJ)

• New research suggests that average global temperatures were higher in the last decade than over most of the previous 11,300 years

Next Upadate Mar. 17

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• The information deprived austerity lemmings from the U.S. Rep./Tea keep marching on - looking for cliffs to go over.

• The Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 77.6 from a preliminary reading of 76.3. The index is at its highest level since November.

• Inflation in the 17-nation Eurozone fell to 2% in January this year, down from the 2.7% rate for the same month last year.
• Eurozone jobless rate rose by 0.1 points to 11.9% in January
• Spain's unemployment rate reached 26.2% in January

• Macau's February gambling revenue rose 12% YoY
• The Las Vegas Sands Corporation (NYSE:LVS) has disclosed that it probably broke a federal law that forbids businesses to bribe foreign government officials in a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.

• The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index climbed 1.1 points to 54.2%, coming in ahead of the 52.5% forecast

• UK's government bond rating cut to Aa1 from Aaa by Moody's

• Lanworth is pegging the Argentine soy crop at 49.6m tonnes, 2.10m tonnes below its estimate two weeks ago.
• USDA’s meaningless new crop prediction: Corn 13/14 ending stocks projected at 2.177 billion bushel, Beans 250 million bushels, wheat 639 million bushels.

• The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.9% in January after jumping 2.4% in December. Tonnage has surged at least 2.4% every month since November, gaining a total of 9.1% over that period. 

  

• Spiegel: I've been in prison for 20 years, but you will never win this war when there is so much money to me made. Never."

Next Update Feb. 3

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• The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment, which records the figure for the first half of a month, edged up to 76.3 in February from 73.8 in the previous month. It's the highest level since November 2012, boosted by rising stock prices, increased property values and a reviving jobs market

• Heinz (HNZ) rose 20% to $72.45, a nickel below the per-share buyout bid made by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA BRKB) and 3G Capital.

• The euro zone’s economy shrank by 0.6% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months.

• The German economy contracted by 0.6% QoQ, its worst performance since the global financial crisis in 2009.

• France contracted by 0.3 % QoQ also worse than expectations.

• Japan's recession continued in Q4, with data showing a 0.1% contraction QoQ

• Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) (Jim Inhofe student?) dismissed the idea that the U.S. government could do anything to combat climate, the day after he gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union.

• USDA projects China corn imports to rise to 770 mln bu per year over the next 10 yrs
• USDA projects China soybean imports to rise to 3.78 bln bu per year over the next 10 years

• Overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities reached 5.55 trillion U.S. dollars in December, up from a revised 5.53 trillion in November 2012. It was the 12th consecutive monthly increase.

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• (WSJ)The Justice Department is expected to sue Standard & Poor's Ratings Services alleging the firm ignored its own standards to rate mortgage bonds that imploded in the financial crisis and cost investors billions.

• China data for January showed exports rose 25% and imports climbed 28.8% YoY, giving the country a trade surplus of $29.2 billion. All three figures beat market expectations.
• A chief of Chinese sovereign wealth fund said that it is a "very good time" to invest in the Eurozone, which he believes is recovering from the crisis.
• China's investor confidence index rose 24.36% MoM to stand at 62.8 in January.

• U.S. personal income rose a solid 2.6% in December, after a 1.0% gain in November.

• Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports January gross gaming revenue +7.3% YoY to 26.9 bln patacas ($3.36 bln), vs. +20% YoY in January 2012.

• Bloomberg: Crop estimates for the Pampas, Argentina’s main soybean region, should be trimmed on a lack of rain, Eduardo Sierra said in an e-mail statement to Bloomberg, The area is facing what may be the hottest start to a year in more than half a century, he said.

• (NYT) America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles.

• According to CFED’s Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, 43.9% of American households are “liquid asset poor” meaning they “lack enough savings to cover basic expenses for just three months if they suffer a loss of income.” Over a quarter of the”liquid asset poor” make between $55,465-$90,000 a year.

• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home values rose 5.5% from November 2011. This is 29% below its peak in July 2006.

• Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in December from 4.1% the previous month. Japan's industrial output rose 2.5% in December.

Next update Feb. 10

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (FT) The salmon fish farming industry is now testing the use of protein from biological yeast and Norwegian spruce trees, in an effort to go to 0% fishmeal in the feed.

• A document obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates the German government is preparing to procure armed drones for foreign combat. Opposition politicians are outraged by the development and note that the use of weapons-equipped unmanned aircraft is legally dubious and possibly unethical.

• Global Smartphone shipments grew 43% YoY to reach a record 700 million units in 2012. QoQ, Nokia's net sale of smart devices rose by 26%.

• (BBC) Mussolini had been wrong to pass anti-Jewish laws but had otherwise been a good leader, said Mr Berlusconi.

• According to global consultancy Ernst and Young, worldwide investments done in line with Islamic law, known as Shari'ah, will reach 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars globally in 2013.

• British economy contracts 0.3% in Q4 of 2012.

• Spanish economy contracts by 1.3%in 2012 -- unemployment reached 26.02% in December. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Spain stood at 55.13%. Thanks A (Austerity) Merkel.

• A think tank predicted that China's GDP would grow in 2013 at a rate of 8.4%, up by 0.6% from that of 2012.

• (Telegraph) Apple shuttled $11bn (£7bn) into offshore tax havens in the fourth quarter of 2012, an analysis of its corporate filings has revealed. The iPad maker has slashed its tax bill by paying less than 2% on its overseas profits, as it moves money through offshoots in low-tax countries such as the British Virgin Islands. Apple's completely legal tax avoidance strategies bring the total the company has sheltered from the US tax authorities to $94bn, according to a Sunday Times analysis. Corporation tax on Apple's overseas operations amount to just 1.9pc of profits, compared with a tax rate of up to 24pc in the UK and 35pc in the US.

• (NYT) “Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Germany showed a paltry growth of just 0.7%.
• German consumer prices rose by 2.1% in December

• Eurozone inflation rose by 2.2% in December

• (Bloomberg) Housing starts in the U.S. climbed 12.1 percent last month to a 954,000 annual rate, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists

• (Spiegel) Young Europeans in countries hit hardest by the Continent's economic crisis are finding it difficult to move out of their parents' home. Data shows that over 50% of those aged 25 to 34 in some countries have yet to move out.

• Pakistan Tumbles into Chaos again. A self-proclaimed revolutionary is attracting mass protests, while the highest court has ordered the prime minister's arrest and the military waits in the wings.

• The Koch brothers are urging Republican/Tea to show restraint during US debt ceiling negotiations, representing quite a shift in position by the extreme right Americans for Prosperity.

• World Bank estimates global economic growth rate at 2.4% in 2013.

• Spanish inflation rate rose by 2.9 % in 2012

• Global containership capacity grew 6% to 16.3 TEU million in 2012

Mario Draghi has saved the rich, now he must save the poor By then millions of people will have fallen into an "enormous poverty trap," to borrow the words of EU jobs chief Laszlo Andor. It is why Gustav Horn -- head of Germany’s IMK Institute and one of the country’s five `Wise Men’ -- called for an end to the contractionary torture last week. "It’s a vicious circle. Excess austerity is not reducing debt, it is causing debt to rise," he said.

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• The Obama administration killed the idea of minting platinum coins in the denomination of 1 trillion U.S. dollars to generate revenue and avoid the looming battle with Republicans on raising the federal government's debt ceiling

• Arlan Suderman‏: Global corn stocks down to 48.8-day supply and trending lower - tightest in 39 years.
• U.S. Domestic corn stocks at a 19.5-day supply - 2nd tightest of the past 50 years

• The Japanese cabinet approved a stimulus package worth 20 trillion yen (about 224 billion U.S. dollars), aiming to shore up Japan's current stagnant economy by beating chronic deflation and tackling the strong yen.

• S. Korean central bank cuts 2013 growth outlook to 2.8 %

• China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.5% YoY in December.
• China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at wholesale level, fell 1.9 % YoY in December.

• ECB holds key interest rate at 0.75%

• Indonesia keeps key rate unchanged at 5.75%

• Almost 200,000 New Zealanders are considering leaving the country to find work abroad, according to the results of a survey

• Spanish unemployment rate reaches 26.6% in November

• Greece's unemployment rate climbed to a record 26.8% in October.

• (FT) Chinese exports and imports rebounded strongly in December, pointing to solid economic growth both in China and abroad. Exports rose 14.1 per cent YoY, the fastest in seven months and well above November’s 2.9 per cent pace. Imports increased 6 % in December from a year earlier after flatlining in November. Both outstripped most forecasts.

• (Bloomberg) Steve and Amber Mostyn, wealthy Texas trial attorneys, said today that they are giving $1 million to help start the gun-control advocacy group formed by former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

• Companies in the S&P 500 are sitting on a record cash pile of $1 trillion according to data from S&P Dow Jones indices.

Paying for It A man walks into a bar. He orders several rounds, downs them, and staggers out. The man has got plastered, the bar owner has got the man’s money, and the public will get stuck with the tab for the cops who have to fish the man out of the gutter.