The Big Picture

---

• Risk Disclosure Statement
• Congress to Vote on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State
• Futures Scream Higher on Italian Bailout Rumor
• Richard Seymour: How beauty feels
• Mapping Black Friday via Twitter
• Making Your Infographic Work
• Billionaires’ Top 10 List for Success
• The Thorium Dream
• WSJ: The Tax Mess Deepens
• RIP Ted Forstmann

Risk Disclosure Statement Posted: 28 Nov 2011 02:00 AM PST Systemic Regulatory Failure: YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION PERMITS YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE UNITED STATES MARKETS THROUGH A REGULATED FUTURES COMMISSION MERCHANT. IN SO DOING, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT A FUTURES COMMISSION MERCHANT (FCM), REGULATED BY EITHER THE NATIONAL FUTURES ASSOCIATION (NFA), THE COMMODITIES FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION (CFTC) OR THROUGH A SELF-REGULATED ORGANIZATION (SRO) SUCH AS THE CME, ALLOWS FOR THE CRIMINAL THEFT OF YOUR MONEY WITH NO RECOURSE. RESTRICTIONS ON REDEMPTIONS OF YOUR FUNDS FROM A FCM MAY AFFECT YOUR ABILITY TO WITHDRAW YOUR FUNDS, MANAGE ANY OPEN POSITIONS, INITIATE HEDGE OR SPECULATIVE POSITIONS RESPONSIVE TO CHANGING ECONOMIC CONDITIONS RESULTING IN ANY LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY, OR THE REDUCTION OF ECONOMIC EXPOSURE, IS COMPLETELY RANDOM AND AT YOUR INDEPENDENT RISK. FURTHER, CUSTOMER SEGREGATED FUNDS ARE INDEED NOT SEGREGATED DESPITE ANY OF THE MYRIAD OF RULES THAT STATE TO THE CONTRARY. PARTICIPANTS SEEKING TO RECOVER THEIR FUNDS HELD IN CUSTOMER SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS OF A U.S. FCM MAY BE SUBJECT TO SUBSTANTIAL FEES FOR BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEE'S, ATTORNEY COSTS AND OTHER CREDITORS SEEKING TO SUPERCEDE YOUR POSITION IN THE RETURN OF YOUR FUNDS DUE TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FCM AND THE RESULTING DISTRIBUTION OF REMAINING ASSETS, IF ANY. FCM'S ARE PERMITTED TO UTILIZE UNRESTRICTED LEVERAGE OF YOUR FUNDS TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL PROFITS TO AVOID DEPLETION OR EXHAUSTION OF THEIR ASSETS EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO PARTICIPATE ON ANY GAINS THEY MAY HAVE BY CONVERTING YOUR FUNDS. THE FCM IS ALSO NOT REQUIRED TO INFORM YOU IN ANY MANNER THAT THEY ARE STEALING YOUR FUNDS, FOR WHAT PURPOSE THEY ARE CONVERTING THESE FUNDS AND HOW MUCH LEVERAGE THEY ARE EMPLOYING WITH THE USE OF YOUR FUNDS. HOWEVER, IT IS WITH SPECIFIC PERMISSION FROM ALL UNITED STATES REGULATORS (CFTC, SEC, NFA, FINRA) THAT FUTURES EXCHANGES (CME, ETC.) AND FCM'S ALIKE CAN EMPHASIZE THE SAFETY OF YOUR FUNDS HELD IN SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE TO INDUCE YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY CRIMES THEY COLLECTIVELY MAY PERMIT REGARDING THE OUTRIGHT CONVERSION, OR THEFT, OF YOUR MONEY REGARDLESS OF ANY ILLUSION YOU MAY HAVE TO THE CONTRARY. THIS BRIEF STATEMENT CANNOT DISCLOSE ALL OF THE RISKS AND OTHER CRIMINAL FACTORS NECESSARY TO EVALUATE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE UNITED STATES REGULATED FCM'S. THEREFORE, BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO PARTICIPATE THROUGH A UNITED STATES FCM AS THE CUSTODIAN OF YOUR MONIES, YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER UTILIZING A CUSTODIAN WITHIN A COUNTRY THAT DOES NOT REGULARLY, AND ARBITRARILY, ABROGATE THE RULES OF LAW SUCH AS THE UNITED STATES.

Congress to Vote on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State Posted: 27 Nov 2011 10:30 PM PST If You Thought Police Brutality Was Bad … Wait Until You See What Congress Wants to Do Next Week The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough. But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state. The ACLU's Washington legislative office explains: The Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. *** The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. *** The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself. The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. *** I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn't anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now? *** In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will "basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield" and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial "American citizen or not." Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because "America is part of the battlefield." *** The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. Part of an Ongoing Trend While this is shocking, it is not occurring in a vacuum. Indeed, it is part of a 30 year-long process of militarization inside our borders and a destruction of the American concepts of limited government and separation of powers. As I pointed out in May: The ACLU noted yesterday [that] Congress is proposing handing permanent, world-wide war-making powers to the president – including the ability to make war within the United States: *** As I noted in 2008: An article in the Army Times reveals that the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team will be redeployed from Iraq to domestic operations within the United States. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with "civil unrest" and "crowd control". The soldiers are learning to use so-called "nonlethal weapons" designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds. This violates posse comitatus and the Constitution. But, hey, we're in a "national emergency", so who cares, right? (We're still in a declared state of national emergency). I noted a couple of months later: Everyone knows that deploying 20,000 troops on U.S. soil violates Posse Comitatus and the Constitution. And everyone understands that staging troops within the U.S. to "help out with civil unrest and crowd control" increases the danger of overt martial law. But no one is asking an obvious question: Does the government's own excuse for deploying the troops make any sense? Other Encroachments On Civil Rights Under Obama As bad as Bush was, the truth is that, in many ways, freedom and constitutional rights are under attack even more than during the Bush years. For example: Obama has presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history — even more so than Nixon. As Marjorie Cohen – professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild – writes at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing court-martial for leaking military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico brig in Virginia. Each night, he is forced to strip naked and sleep in a gown made of coarse material. He has been made to stand naked in the morning as other inmates walked by and looked. As journalist Lance Tapley documents in his chapter on torture in the supermax prisons in The United States and Torture, solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations and suicide; it is considered to be torture. Manning's forced nudity amounts to humiliating and degrading treatment, in violation of U.S. and international law. Nevertheless, President Barack Obama defended Manning's treatment, saying, "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate. They assured me they are." Obama's deference is reminiscent of President George W. Bush, who asked "the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government" to review the interrogation techniques. "They assured me they did not constitute torture," Bush said. *** After State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley criticized Manning's conditions of confinement, the White House forced him to resign. Crowley had said the restrictions were "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid." It appears that Washington is more intent on sending a message to would-be whistleblowers than on upholding the laws that prohibit torture and abuse. *** Torture is commonplace in countries strongly allied with the United States. Vice President Omar Suleiman, Egypt's intelligence chief, was the lynchpin for Egyptian torture when the CIA sent prisoners to Egypt in its extraordinary rendition program. A former CIA agent observed, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear – never to see them again – you send them to Egypt." In her chapter in The United States and Torture, New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer cites Egypt as the most common destination for suspects rendered by the United States. As I pointed out in March: Former constitutional law teacher Glenn Greenwald says that – in his defense of state secrecy, illegal spying, preventative detention, harassment of whistleblowers and other issues of civil liberties – Obama is even worse than Bush. Indeed, Obama has authorized "targeted assassinations" against U.S. citizens. Even Bush didn't openly do something so abhorrent to the rule of law. Obama is trying to expand spying well beyond the Bush administration's programs. Indeed, the Obama administration is arguing that citizens should never be able to sue the government for illegal spying. Obama's indefinite detention policy is an Orwellian nightmare, which will create more terrorists. Furthermore – as hard as it is for Democrats to believe – the disinformation and propaganda campaigns launched by Bush have only increased under Obama. See this and this. And as I pointed out last year: According to Department of Defense training manuals, protest is considered "low-level terrorism". And see this, this and this. An FBI memo also labels peace protesters as "terrorists". *** A 2003 FBI memo describes protesters' use of videotaping as an "intimidation" technique, even though – as the ACLU points out – "Most mainstream demonstrators often use videotape during protests to document law enforcement activity and, more importantly, deter police from acting outside the law." The FBI appears to be objecting to the use of cameras to document unlawful behavior by law enforcement itself. The Internet has been labeled as a breeding ground for terrorists, with anyone who questions the government's versions of history being especially equated with terrorists. Government agencies such as FEMA are allegedly teaching that the Founding Fathers should be considered terrorists. The government is also using anti-terrorism laws to keep people from learning what pollutants are in their own community. See this, this, this and this. Claims of "national security" are also used to keep basic financial information – such as who got bailout money – secret. That might not bode for particularly warm and friendly treatment for someone persistently demanding the release of such information. The state of Missouri tried to label as terrorists current Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters, former Congressman Bob Barr, libertarians in general, anyone who holds gold, and a host of other people. And according to a law school professor and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, pursuant to the Military Commissions Act: Anyone who … speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens. Obama has refused to reverse these practices. There Is Still a Chance to Stop It The ACLU notes that there is some hope: But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values. *** The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in. *** Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Futures Scream Higher on Italian Bailout Rumor Posted: 27 Nov 2011 05:49 PM PST click for updated futures > Futures are screaming higher overnight on yet another European bailout deal for Italy. According to unverified reports from La Stampa, the IMF is preparing a 600 billion euro ($794 billion) loan for Italy. The paper has refused to state where it got the information. But that small detail is of no consequence to traders hungry for some green on the screen after November saw $4.7 trillion wiped out from global equity values. If we were to open here, markets would gap up nearly 2%, breaking a seven-day losing streak for US equities. Asian stocks have already broken their 4 day losing streak, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gaining 1.3%. A few caveats: The bailout rumors are just that — rumors. Note that the U.S. is a major funder of the IMF, and a bailout of Italy with US Taxpayer dollars wont go over well in an election year. Also note that the reporting on sales during Thanksgiving was filled with all manner of garbage (Sales climbed “16 percent to a record, said the National Retail Federation”)  I suspect we will see flat to 2% sales gains at best, and not these ridiculous outliers. Regardless, don’t forget to bring your rally caps to work tomorrow. . .

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels Posted: 27 Nov 2011 12:30 PM PST A story, a work of art, a face, a designed object — how do we tell that something is beautiful? And why does it matter so much to us? Designer Richard Seymour explores our response to beauty and the surprising power of objects that exhibit it. Designer Richard Seymour works on products with soul — from a curvy, swoopy iron to a swift and sleek city motorcycle. Seymourpowell is regarded as one of the world's leading product and innovation design consultancies, with clients who include Ford, Virgin Galactic, Tefal, Casio, Nokia, Guinness, Samsung and Unilever. Seymour is also consultant global creative director of design to Unilever's Dove, Axe/Lynx and Vaseline brands. The pair have appeared extensively on British television, most notably in two series on design for Channel 4: Better by Design and Designs on your…. They have also appeared on Design Challenge and several radio productions. In the 1980s, Seymour co-wrote the book The Mirrorstone, with Michael Palin, a children’s book full of holograms.

Mapping Black Friday via Twitter Posted: 27 Nov 2011 12:00 PM PST > Source: Mapping Black Friday insanity on Twitter Tom Cheredar Venture Beat November 24, 2011 http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/24/black-friday-shoppers-twitter/

Making Your Infographic Work Posted: 27 Nov 2011 11:00 AM PST 6 Steps to Making Your Infographic Work See also 6 Steps to Making Your Infographic Work via SEO gadget

Billionaires’ Top 10 List for Success Posted: 27 Nov 2011 08:30 AM PST Barbara Walters on 20/20 (via The Wealth Report) interviews four billionaires, and culls out some wisdom for managing success. You may recall that this is an area I have some interest in. Back in June, I wrote up something along similar lines: 7 life lessons from the very wealthy. Back to The Wealth Report: Here is the top 10 list culled from billionaires: 1. Figure out what you're so passionate about that you'd be happy doing it for 10 years, even if you never made any money from it. That's what you should be doing. 2. Always be true to yourself. 3. Figure out what your values are and live by them, in business and in life. 4. Rather than focus on work-life separation, focus on work-life integration. 5. Don't network. Focus on building real relationships and friendships where the relationship itself is its own reward, instead of trying to get something out of the relationship to benefit your business or yourself. 6. Remember to maximize for happiness, not money or status. 7. Get ready for rejection. 8. Success unshared is failure. Give back — share your wealth. 9. (A secret so powerful, we simply cannot tell you) 10. Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do. Not a bad list . . . > Source: Billionaires Share Their Secrets to Success Robert Frank The Wealth Report, October 28, 2011   http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/10/28/billionaires-share-their-secrets-to-success/

The Thorium Dream Posted: 27 Nov 2011 07:20 AM PST Full article on MotherboardTV: See also: Wired’s Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke Jan 2010

WSJ: The Tax Mess Deepens Posted: 27 Nov 2011 06:00 AM PST > The WSJ takes a look at a variety of taxes that are about to expire year end, the expiring tax cuts of 2012, and what new taxes go into effect or expire in 2013: Expiring in 2011 • 2% Social Security payroll-tax cut for employees • Alternative minimum tax patch • IRA charitable contribution for people older than 70½. Expiring in 2012 • Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. • top tax rate on wages reset to 39.6% from 35% • top rate on long-term capital gains to 20% from 15% • Special 15% rate on dividends • estate-tax provisions. • 10 million lower-income families and individuals restored to the tax rolls Silver lining: The dysfunctional US government may end up leading to a lower deficits, as many of the expiring tax cuts are unfunded contributors to huge deficits. > Source: The Tax Mess Deepens LAURA SAUNDERS WSJ, NOVEMBER 26, 2011  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577054183310576476.html

RIP Ted Forstmann Posted: 27 Nov 2011 05:30 AM PST Frederick Sheehan is the co-author of Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve. His new book, Panderer for Power: The True Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession, was published by McGraw-Hill in November 2009. He was Director of Asset Allocation Services at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. In this capacity, he set investment policy and asset allocation for institutional pension plans. ˜˜˜ In a world where evidence often shows the bad do well, memories of a good, rich man may lift the spirits of the disillusioned. Ted Forstmann died of brain cancer on Sunday, November 20, 2011. He was 71. Obituaries and tributes that describe his life are accessible in newspapers and elsewhere. We met at Michael’s in New York after the publication of Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession. “I really enjoyed your book,” were his first words. This was gratifying, since the number who have read the book is probably in double-digits. Ted was a former friend of Alan Greenspan’s, so, it was especially nice to hear, “You were very fair to him.” I told him this was not difficult since Greenspan’s own words condemned his Federal Reserve chairmanship. Recording his life and statements before 1987 (the year he became Fed chairman) was evidence enough that he lacked personal character to a sufficient degree for the Wise Men to satisfactorily conclude Alan Greenspan would act as expected. I went out of my way to suggest higher motivations for Greenspan’s blemishes, allowing the reader to decide in which direction the evidence fell. In Ted’s opinion: “His own words showed how confused he was.” Ted thought my chapters about the 1980s were accurate. This was received with some relief. Few played a more central role than Ted, during the period I proposed (in Panderer to Power) as the sharp break in American finance. In particular, 1984 to 1986 was the time when Wall Street corruption was institutionalized. Alan Greenspan’s participation in the S&L swindle (in 1984 and 1985) was akin to a Triple-A, minor-league, first baseman batting .360: the consulting economist was major-league material. (From a letter written by New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan on August 15, 1990: “Consider the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) more commonly known as the ‘S&L bailout bill.’ Has there ever been an equivalent phantasmagoria of evasion, avoidance, incompetence, muddle, and panic, all with the nice overlay of swindle? From a Treasury Department once handled by Alexander Hamilton! The largest scandal in the history of the national government; for which no one is responsible. That being the first sign of a government whose true energies and talents are directed elsewhere.”) There were more pages in Panderer to Power about the 1980s than some wished. Yet, the times and the man were Siamese twins. A grounding in that period is a foundation to understanding the final and accelerating finish of venerated U.S. institutions today: financial, academic, media, and government. Without saying it should be so (to the best of my recollection), Ted supported my conclusion that Too-Big-To-Fail banks should be shut. He didn’t know his banker anymore: “I don’t know what a bank is. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I went for a loan for one of my companies recently. The room was filled and I couldn’t figure out if there was a person, a banker, who decided [whether I would get] the loan. None of them knew who I was.” Ted did not think derivatives should exist “except to hedge gold, crops [or similar physical materials].” I had not known, until reading the New York Times obituary, that Ted Forstmann “coined, if inadvertently, a phrase that set the public image of the leveraged buyout industry. While he was golfing in the late 1980s with Richard L. Gelb, then the chairman of Bristol Myers, the discussion turned to a surge in takeovers by buyout firms. ‘What does it all mean?’ Mr. Gelb asked Mr. Forstmann. ‘It means the barbarians are at the gate,’ Mr. Forstmann replied. ‘And they’ll be coming for you next.’” The obituary quoted from a Wall Street Journal column that Ted wrote in 1988: “Watching these deals get done is like watching a herd of drunk drivers take to the highway on New Year’s Eve.” I graduated from business school in 1985 and played a bit part in the leveraged buyout spectacle. As a bit player though, with investment bankers grasping for every company’s business (even to the unlikely degree of wooing a very junior analyst), I knew the gossip. Ted Forstmann was in the thick of deal-making at that point (Forstmann, Little), but his name was above reproach. Ted thought younger people today combine a strange mix of materiality and immateriality. People he talked to in their 30s or 40s wanted to make money. They didn’t really care about producing or making something. Ted thought Alan Greenspan, via the Federal Reserve, was the central spigot of our current plight. In Ted’s words: “They print the money. When they print too much, it goes into activities that aren’t economic. When the interest rate is too low, people aren’t careful. Borrowers can pay back in depreciated dollars. They barely need to put any of their own money into a project. If interest rates are 7%, they need to calculate its potential profitability.” Ted recommended Nicole Gelinas’s book: After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Washington and Wall Street. He thought she successfully made the case we did not need a slew of new financial regulations. If the Federal Reserve and other regulators had enforced the rules then in place, there would not have been a financial crisis. These are wise conclusions that could never penetrate the interests in Washington, Wall Street, academia, and the media. For each of these parties, such an acknowledgement would reveal their failure to halt the obvious beforehand. (See Moynihan, 1990, above.) I presumed Ted did not think Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was an improvement. Whenever his name was mentioned, Ted either winced as if he had bitten into a lemon or exhaled a low moan. Ted was disappointed, but maybe not surprised, that I saw no other solution than to let prices, including assets and incomes, settle at a lower level, at which point the U.S. will be competitive again. This may have been a reason he simply could not speak at the mention of Ben Bernanke’s name. Ted Forstmann was a sterling example in a tarnished field.

You are subscribed to email updates from The Big Picture To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

.