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"The increased political uncertainty and non-conducive backdrop for further structural reform measures constitute a further adverse shock to the real economy amidst the deep recession," the agency said. The latest economic data underscored that the recession in Italy is "one of the deepest in Europe," according to Fitch. Related: Eurozone economy to shrink again in 2013.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/08/investing/italy-fitch/
BP Expects to Pay More Over Deepwater
PLC expects to pay more than previously anticipated in compensation for private economic and property damage stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the company's annual report.
Average payments for business economic losses so far have been higher than anticipated, the company said. This means BP can no longer give a reliable estimate for the total cost of the settlement it agreed on last year with the plaintiffs' steering committee—a group representing individuals with economic, property or medical damage claims—other than to say it will be significantly higher than $7.7 billion.
BP has already spent over $24 billion in cleanup and restoration costs and payments on claims made by individuals, businesses and governments related to Deepwater Horizon, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said this week. This latest increase in the cost of the disaster, which killed 11 men and triggered the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, comes as the company is embroiled in a civil trial could bring additional fines totaling as much as $17.6 billion.
BP has spent or provisioned more than $40 billion in total for the disaster, Mr. Dudley said.
BP said the cost of the plaintiffs' steering committee settlement had been higher than expected because the administrator of the compensation fund was using a more generous interpretation of the payout agreement than BP had assumed initially.
In February, BP said it expected the settlement to cost $8.5 billion—already an increase from the original estimated cost of $7.8 billion last year—but it has now withdrawn that guidance.
The company said it would issue fresh guidance for the higher costs as soon as it is able, but that it was currently not possible to produce a reliable estimate.
The final cost is likely to be higher than $7.7 billion, which is BP's estimate of other payments to be made under the plaintiffs' steering committee settlement, excluding the future claims for business economic loss, whose size cannot now be determined because the size of the payouts are subject to a legal dispute.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578348320742310086.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Treasuries Drop as Gain in Jobs Signals Fed’s Efforts Paying Off
Treasuries slid, pushing 10-year note yields to an 11-month high, after U.S. employers added more jobs than forecast and the unemployment rate fell, indicating the Federal Reserve’s stimulus efforts may be paying off.
Yields on 10-year notes headed for the biggest weekly increase in almost a year as gauges of company hiring and U.S. services industries rose more than forecast. The jobless rate unexpectedly dropped to 7.7 percent last month, a four-year low. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke reiterated last week the central bank will keep buying bonds until there’s “substantial improvement” in the labor market.
23 comments:
The job numbers are a joke. Lower pay less benefits and less security.
BP should pay through the nose for at least another ten years.
By the time anyone sees these tiny increases in t-bills it will be eaten away by inflation. I truly thought we would never see the DOW at 14k again, but I was wrong. Gold and Silver seem to have lost their luster and are range bound heading downward. We are one or two big selloff days away from -1500.00 and 25.00 The miners are still in the doldrums. This is just my opinion.
The banksters have won again and are already starting the housing shell game all over again. Believe me their are plenty of suckers standing in line for a chance to start flipping homes again.
This is the weekend thread so feel free to take the comments in whatever direction you want. I'll be chiming in and deleting spam as fast as I can.
" Italy has been without clear leadership for weeks as politicians struggle to form a coalition following last month's inconclusive election. Fitch said it is unlikely that a stable government will be formed in the next few weeks."
The freaking election was less than 2 weeks ago! In a hurry, much?
It only took these PIIGS 30+ years to get where they are now, but they are supposed to turn it around in months, just because they have a new Government? Hardly.
They are correct to downgrade Italy, but it looks like a bit of an unseemly rush.
There have been so many dollar figures tossed around about the BP Gulf Oil Volcano that I don't know what to believe. How does the $20 billion settlement that was hyped not long after the gusher was clamped (if the official story about the clampification is true) fit in with these figures. Is any of it true?
I was commiserating the other night with my best Aussie friend, a guy who's 65 and had to sell his house and return to work after he had retired at age 60, because he somehow came a-cropper in some investment deal. Americans -- you don't know how good you've got it with your bankruptcy laws! You rarely have to sell your house to pay your debts. He's nowhere near as paranoid as I am, but he was remarking on how many corporate criminals there are these days, and how everything about everything is now suspect as being false. And this is a guy who's fairly happy-go-lucky, although he's pretty well-informed about what's happening in the world. (As compared to the naifs I encountered on my trip to the U.S.) The falsity breeds a cynicism that corrodes a complex civilization like acid. If you can't trust anything, how can you do business?
And QB, when I saw his wife for the first time in 3 1/2 years, I got a vision of what you must be going through with Yvonne. My mate's wife was never as politically focused as he was, but she was intelligent and perceptive. Only, when I called them at home the night after I got here to arrange a dinner meet-up, she seemed non-plussed, despite knowing that I was coming down. I mentioned taking the trams from my hotel to their house, and she spoke as if that would be difficult, because I'd have to take two trams. Even though I said I'd be happy to stop by for a drink and some chatter, she was flummoxed because "we don't have any meat in the house." I got worried, because I wondered whether I was "on the nose" (Aussie slang for "unwelcome like a bad-smelling fart"), like maybe they had taken my X's side.
Only, when we did meet up (details handled by the husband) I found the wife to be oddly vague and less-talkative than usual. Maybe I'm too medically focused, but after not seeing her for 3 1/2 years, I noticed a big change. I'd say it's some form of dementia (and she's only 65.) Seems to be early onset. I don't know if my friend notices, because these changes can creep up slowly. I don't know what to do -- I can't say "Mate, are you getting your wife checked for dementia?" I hope I'm leaping to assumptions, but I'm afraid my friend is soon going to be in the position you are in (minus the mobility issues).
And while I'm banging on about Australia, let me add another comment about how I continue to be amazed at what a huge cultural influence the United States has down here. And I'm not just talking about T-shirts, even though I reckon at least 50% of the shirts I see that have printed slogans on them make reference to American things (like the "North Dakota State University" shirt I saw in a beach-side town today.)
But yesterday I was having a beer at my old "local" (a pub close to home where you like to hang out) and eavesdropping as I usually do. I love to listen to conversations around me, whether it's at work, on the tram, or even when I'm riding my bicycle. Not for any ill intent, but just to get a better sense of what people in the world are saying/thinking.
So two middle-aged businessmen types are sitting behind me and one asks the other (in all seriousness) if he's on any medications for depression. The other guy says "I'm going to take the 5th Amendment on that." The 5th Amendment -- an American constitutional term that has nothing to do with Australia. But that concept has so permeated world culture that it's part of everyday discussion here. Wow, American ideas are influential. Too bad the reality of how those ideals are put into practice is not as good as the sales job that gets Aussies talking about them.
Wow Bukko sounds like the world is being Americanized. Banksters are taking over all around the globe and no one trusts anyone any more.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/03/90213/
"Questioning Why Treasury Defends TBTF Banks"
"...HSBC admitted to money laundering. To laundering $881 million that we know of for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. And also admitted to violating our sanctions for Iran, Libya, Cuba, Burma, the Sudan. And they didn’t do it just one time. It wasn’t like a mistake. They did it over and over and over again across a period of years. And they were caught doing it. Warned not to do it. And kept right on doing it. And evidently making profits doing it.
Now HSBC paid a fine, but no one individual went to trial. No individual was banned from banking. And there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States. So what I’d like is, you’re the experts on money laundering. I’d like your opinion. What does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?..."
Sen Warren attempts to get justice, fails. Read the whole thing. America, One Nation Under Banksters.
Thanks GAW I think I did a post on that when it first came out and was not happy that all HSBC got was a fine and not one bankster went to jail. This is the good ole boys network at its worst.
Also getting back to Bukko comment that the guy "was taking the fifth" this also seems to be common. We are outsourcing our newsspeak. People are afraid of what others think of them. Paranoia is spreading the world like wildfire.
Speaking of Ritholz, I caught him an the PBS Newshour last week. (There's an over-the-air channel run by he government here named SBS that plays TV news shows from all over the world, and the PBS one is what they show for the American viewpoint.) He was mostly optimistic about the jobs numbers and other economic trends in the U.S., even though he concedes they're unfolding too slowly to make a normal recovery. He's been a cynical, skeptical guy in the past, but no he's feeling better about things. If someone like him is saying "Things aren't so bad" then I'm starting to lean toward that idea more. People like Ritholz study the details closer than me, and they're smarter than I am, so I consider them as my "opinion leaders." Maybe I should lighten up a bit.
SPAM cleanup needed in Aisle 4:40!
Bukko said... "...and eavesdropping as I usually do. I love to listen to conversations around me..."
- - - - - - - - - - -
Sometimes when I am out and about, I hear Russian immigrants speaking to one another in their language.
Once while at the grocery store, I overheard a Russian woman in the checkout line saying to her comrade, "Look at that fat lady there with her shopping cart filled with junk food and soda, no wonder she is so fat!"
Speaking in Russian, I said to them, "In case you don't know this - many Americans can speak Russian, but they are too polite to tell you they understand these snide comments you are making.
Her face turned white as a sheet!
Well, the tube of 25 of the newly-released Canadian Wildl;ife Series Wood Bison coins arrived today.
Being the entrepreneur that I am, these 1-oz silver coins are already listed for sale on Craigslist for $6 more than what I paid for them. Let's see if any fish will bite...
Speaking of Bison, we all know about the American buffalo and how there were tens of millions of these stomping around the Great Plains 200 years ago.
But did you know there was also a subspecies of these majestic animals which inhabited the forests in eastern North America? They wera all wiped out by the end of the 1700's.
And that's no Bull!
Hey Bullo, when will you return back to the land of hockey sticks and beavers?
TYPO ALERT!!!
'Bullo' s/b 'Bukko.'
Apologies, but obviously bison were still on my mind when I wrote that.
Bukko I agree that Barry is a good source of information, but you have to weigh what you hear with what you see. I can only say that nothing is improving in Orlando. The new jobs are are usually 10.00/hr and no benefits. 15 years of management experience and the only call backs I get are entry level. I will never go back on the phones and live in a cubicle.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/03/the-information-age/
How the internet, if you can use it correctly, can give you information that would have been almost impossible to gather for ordinary people a generation ago.
This is an advantage of our age, for those who want to reach out and use it. The sheeple masses won't, they use it to exchange pics of their genitals or tweets about the weather. But that doesn't mean you can't.
Think about it, the possibilities are endless.
The link I posted above has to be read in it's entirety, as Sen Warrne tries to pin down "regulators" on how big the Bankster crime has to be before they actually do something meaningful.
You have to remember Ritholz is a trader. His long term macro-economic view has little to with his trading. He is a Fund manager, and they use their "Fusion IQ" automated trading system, which gives buy/sell indicators based on their style of technical analysis.
But when he talks about the economy, he said just last week on his Blog that we are in a Secular Bear Market since 2001 and in a Depression.
Which we are. The only thing keeping the lights on is an endless tidal wave of Central Bankster liquidity, if that stopped for a day, the global financial system would likely immediately implode. Starting in EUrope, of course, where the Banksters there are even more over-levered than in most other places, a difficult feat to achieve.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-09/fed-injects-record-100-billion-reserves-foreign-banks-operating-us-past-week
"Fed Injects Record $100 Billion Cash Into Foreign Banks Operating In The US In Past Week"
"...virtually all the "reserves" created by the Fed end up allocated as cash at commercial banks operating in the US: both domestically-chartered (small and large), but more importantly, foreign. And of the $1.884 trillion in very fungible cash parked in various domestic and international US banks, just half of it, or $949 billion is actually allocated to US banks. The other half, or $936 billion, is parked within, again, very fungible cash accounts of foreign (read European) banks operating in the US. This is shown in the chart below (green area is cash of foreign banks), and what is also shown is the total change in the Fed's excess reserves, which proves, once more, that the Fed continues to fund European banks with hundreds of billions in cash on a week by week basis. And what is perhaps most important, is that of the $250 billion in new reserves created under QEternity, all of it has gone to foreign (read European) banks..."
Look at the velocity of money, in the USA and many other places, it is nearing zero and falling.
The failure of massive money printing to do anything for the real global economy is apparent. The largest Failout in world history has bought a few years of phoney recovery, but now the size of the deficits run up recently makes the continuance of the bubble highly questionable.
Thus we are approaching the resolution phase of this down cycle, finally. When the Central Banksters and Master Planners fail and capitulate to reality.
That cold reality that the globe has been on a 30+ year credit bender, and now is the hangover. We are still swirling the deflationary bowl, bobbing on the "liquidity" wave. Until the bad credit and hidden losses are purged from the system, real organic growth cannot happen.
GAW I agree. I also saved the link to look at tomorrow. Smoke and mirrors only work until the show is over. Then reality sets in.
afternoon, all.
Just returned from hubby's hobby show. I can tell you that there was no shortage of shoppers spending money at the nearby outlets on the SURFACE, but for 3 weeks before Easter it was not packed the way it used to be. Didn't see many buses (they come from NYC). Restaurants were crowded--but with the amount of (mainly men) and some families, that is expected. Hubby thought the show itself was pretty thinly populated.
Our motel wasn't full--which is a HUGE deal as you usually can't book a room at this place. They informed me that they had raised their prices since I booked (fine print says rates NOT GUARANTEED) but as I hadn't thought to use my AAA card I did get 5% off...which isn't all that much when you add in the room taxes, state taxes, etc. And it is a 'medium' grade motel (no indoor pool or jacuzzi or anything special) although it does come with breakfast.
Still, it left me wondering if we aren't beginning to see a small bit of inflation creeping in. After the 'cuts' of people, are companies are going to have to either raise prices or going out of business, or succumb to both...?
Bukko--your 2 sentiments about people being on medication really hit home. Drivers we saw were so aggressive that it was scary. Even among my close friends, many are 'depressed' and on medication...which is fine as long as they are monitored AND seeing professionals so as to ensure that they aren't popping pills as a cop out.
I, too, listen to conversations around me. I also smile at unknowns a lot. It is amazing...many grumpy faces do tend to loosen up a bit when they see people smile and say, "good morning or evening." Not all...but many. ;-)
Many of the Spanish speakers are Puerto Rico, Columbia and other Central American states. They know a lot of Gringos speak Spanish and would never try to slur them in Spanish. Also I haven't found many Hispanics to be rude or disrespectful. As a manager I loved working with them and tried to understand their culture. I don't think I was ever sued for discrimination by a person of Hispanic origin. Maybe that is because I didn't. LOL
The good thing is that Florida is leaning more Democratic and Obama was very popular with them. You know me though. I think they are all just useless and we need a game changer.
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