Tag: finance

The clearly agitated BATS CEO came out swinging, blasting Katsuyama and Lewis "Shame On You," for apparently telling the truth of what occurs in the stock 'market and letting everyone in on it'. The tension grows when he presses Katsuyama on whether he really believes it is rigged… who then erupts "I believe the markets are rigged.. and that you are a part of the rigging." Then the gloves come off "you wanna do this, let's do this!" and then it got worse (or better)…

Just the first 3 minute round in this epic clip is worth the price of admission (and note the floor traders cheers in the background)… but to watch the status quo crushed under the awesome honesty of reality as this is all exposed, watch on…

 

 

Who won?

 

As a gentle reminder of why the BATS CEO is upset to start with…

How a rogue algo crushed the BATS IPO

In Nanex' own words:

Start at line 192 — these weren't stale quotes from Nasdaq by any means. These were highly accurate and precisely updated quotes from a sophisticated algorithm programmed to take BATS's price to 0. You can see the BATS trades just before the algo on Nasdaq starts up. In other words, after the BATS trades print, everything is fine (except of course for BATS' system). Nasdaq's system is just fine. So is CQS (the SIP). That algo did its job with the precision of a master watch maker.

 

The data and charts make this abundantly clear. The trade(s) that shut down Apple would be considered stale/bad quotes. But not those 500+ trades on Nasdaq.

Nanex' verdict:

It had to be someone who's machines are directly connected to Nasdaq because they used Intermarket Sweep Order orders.

And visually:

Look at the timing! There are many quotes lasting less than 1/10,000 of a second in there! (10 quotes/millisecond). And note the almost perfect 45 degree line in log-scaled blue line below.

 

Had to be from same algo. Way too perfect. Way. Too. Perfect.

 

If BATS' system hadn't failed, this algo would have likely been obscured.

Alas, BATS did fail, and the result was last week's epic embarrassment for BATS which already cost the CEO his chairmanship, and the firm hundreds of millions in fresh equity, but also which destroyed any hope that the retail investor may be coming back to what is now a permanently and terminally broken market.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/Pfcgf9 Tyler Durden

So, to summarize… mere months after Mary Barra took over the reins of GM from a somewhat surprising Dan Akerson exit, she is faced with record high inventories of unsold vehicles of dealer lots, a sales halt, a recall of 2.53 million vehicles (some of which have been alleged to be responsible for at least 12 deaths), potential bankruptcy fraud inquiries (from non-disclosures), and now a Congressional hearing that is rather uncomfortably titled “The GM Ignition Switch Recall: Why Did It Take So Long?” The phrase “under the bus” comes to mind though we wonder just how many times the so far entirely plain-spoken Barra will ‘plead da fif’ today.

 

Any questions?

This should simplify things…

 

How GM determines if they do a recall http://ift.tt/1fmfU0e

— Stalingrad & Poorski (@Stalingrad_Poor) April 1, 2014

 

 

It’s not just GM’s CEO Mary Barra that is speaking. On the other side of the aisle will be NHTSA’s David Friedman… grab your popcorn…

 

Live streaming video by Ustream

 

Here is the full background on the hearing:

HHRG-113-IF02-20140401-SD002-U2

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1e9n18D Tyler Durden

CNBC's last hour is likely the most-watched in a decade (perhaps because after 5 years of delays HFT is finally getting the exposure it has deserved from day one… and covered right here on this website since April 2009). From the HFT lobby explaining that "there is no front-running going on in HFT," to Michael Lewis explaining the "skimming" amd why "HFT is a tax on your investment dollars," the following clips are stunning in their total failure to calm an uneasy investing public. Howevere, when asked by the CNBC anchors whether his comment on the market being rigged was exaggeration he summed it all up perfectly… "Are you really under the illusion that the individual investor trusts Wall Street… the financial crisis wiped out any residue of trust for Wall Street even if they ever had it."
 

 

Keep in mind, the point of this clip is to calm and assure everyone that markets are fair and not rigged

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 1, 2014

 

First of all the HFT lobby explains how no one has been a bigger beneficiary of HFT than the small retail investor…

 

then he adds that HFT "trading" is not "skimming" – take the blue pill before you watch this…

 

So summing up the HFT perspective…

 

Up next on CNBC, Ted Bundy on why hitchhiking should be always legal.

— Rudolf E. Havenstein (@RudyHavenstein) April 1, 2014

 

Lewis explains how HFT traders exploit the system

 

And how The SEC is asleep at the wheel… and most importantly how there is no trust left for Wall Street – forward to 2:00 for the money-shot

 

And we leave it to Bob Pisani to sum it all up… after watching this weekend's 60 Minutes:

My wife asked me "Honey, is it safe to invest in the stock market"

What did you tell her, Bob? Probably not this…

.@cnbc Brad Katsuyama said another flash crash was possible.No one asked him why.This is a far bigger issue than scalping. #NesteggvsPennies

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 1, 2014

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1fmfVBc Tyler Durden

Considering the rancorous debate currently going on between Michael Lewis (we will have more to say about it shortly) on CNBC, we decided that this would be an opportune moment to remind readers how BATS, which currently owns DirectEdge, IPOed, or rather how it failed to IPO, when it crashed and burned in its attempt to go public on March 23, 2012, when a rogue algo destabilized the order book and promptly sent the indicative price from around $16 to 0… in less than a second – perheps the perfect testament to just what HFT really does…. and just so readers have an objective perspective of how “unrigged” the market is.

From March 27, 2013:

SkyNet Wars: How A Nasdaq Algo Destroyed BATS

Following the May 2010 flash crash, the investing public hoped that as part of its “exhaustive report”, the SEC would find and hold responsible the various components of a broken market structure, be it HFTs, ETFs, stubbing and sub-pennying algorithms, and all the other knowns and unknowns we have covered over the years. Instead, in what would prove to be a move of cataclysmic stupidity (if sadly understandable – the SEC, like everyone else “in charge” is used to dealing with a gullible and simplistic public, which has no access to the real data and analysis, and whose opinion could be easily manipulated, at least until now), the regulator blamed and scapegoated it all on a Waddell and Reed trade (we wonder just what the quid pro quo was to get the asset manager to roll over and take the blame despite protestations to the contrary, at least in the beginning). The result was that the same investing public realized that market structure is so corrupt, and so robotically mutated, there is no place for the small investor in this broken market. Last week’s BATS IPO fiasco merely confirmed this. And as usual, BATS (whose chairman Ratterman has just been demoted even as he stays on as CEO) decided to take the “passive voice” approach and blame it all on a faceless, emotionless, motiveless “software glitch“. Just like that perfectly innocuous BSOD we have all grown to love and expect any minute. Only it wasn’t. To get to the bottom of what really happened, in a world in which the SEC is far more interested in finding the latest discount internet porn stream than actually protecting the small investor, we relied on our friends from Nanex, who have time and again proven to have a far better grasp of what it is that really happens in the market than virtually anyone else. And if Nanex’ interpretation of events is correct (spoiler alert – it was not a “software glitch”) it takes SkyNet wars from the silver screen and to a trading terminal near you. What happened is that a malicious, 100% intentional Nasdaq algorithm purposefully brought BATS stock to a price of 0.00 within 900 millisecond of the company’s break for trading! This is open SkyNet warfare.

The fact that the BATS exchange itself halted just prior to break only facilitated this (and could potentially be a case of malicious sabotage). But one thing is clear – as the data below shows, there is no doubt that an Intermarket Sweep Order originating on the Nasdaq exchange was unleashed to make a mockery out of BATS. It succeeded, and in doing so may have destroyed not only BATS chances for going public, but ultimately ruined the firm’s credibility. Who would stand to gain from this? Why exchanges such as Nasdaq and NYSE of course, which already are scrambling for revenue, and in the aftermath of the failed Deutsche Boerse merger, it means that any dirty trick in the book to extend and pretend is now fair game. Such as the algo that crashed BATS.

We fully expect that in keeping with its galactic stupidity of yore, the SEC will do nothing to address this situation which is nothing short of exchange warfare using rogue and malicious algorithms as agents of war. Further, in doing so, it will once more destroy any latent “credibility” that the stock market may have created with the retail investor following the 4 month ridiculous and centrally planned melt up (we doubt there is much faith to lose – as we pointed out last week, Joe Sixpack no longer wishes to be the big boys’ patsy). Oh well – if the market and its regulators wish to make “investing” solely a provenance of central banks, ultra fast algorithms, and Primary Dealers, so be it. They can play in their sandbox all they want. Just don’t expect the trillions in “money on the sidelines” but mostly in savings accounts, where it may earn 0% interest, but at least it won’t be vaporized courtesy of some vacuum tube, to ever come back to stocks. Ever.

As for the forensic reconstruction of what truly happened to BATS, below we provide a spreadsheet (the excel can be downloaded here), of every single trade post the BATS IPO

20120323.BATS.TandQ

 

In Nanex’ own words:

Start at line 192 — these weren’t stale quotes from Nasdaq by any means. These were highly accurate and precisely updated quotes from a sophisticated algorithm programmed to take BATS’s price to 0. You can see the BATS trades just before the algo on Nasdaq starts up. In other words, after the BATS trades print, everything is fine (except of course for BATS’ system). Nasdaq’s system is just fine. So is CQS (the SIP). That algo did its job with the precision of a master watch maker.

 

The data and charts make this abundantly clear. The trade(s) that shut down Apple would be considered stale/bad quotes. But not those 500+ trades on Nasdaq.

Nanex’ verdict:

It had to be someone who’s machines are directly connected to Nasdaq because they used Intermarket Sweep Order orders.

And visually:

Look at the timing! There are many quotes lasting less than 1/10,000 of a second in there! (10 quotes/millisecond). And note the almost perfect 45 degree line in log-scaled blue line below.

 

Had to be from same algo. Way too perfect. Way. Too. Perfect.

 

If BATS’ system hadn’t failed, this algo would have likely been obscured.

Alas, BATS did fail, and the result was last week’s epic embarrassment for BATS which already cost the CEO his chairmanship, and the firm hundreds of millions in fresh equity, but also which destroyed any hope that the retail investor may be coming back to what is now a permanently and terminally broken market.

 

*  *  *

And For the chart porn addicts, here is a step by step forensic view from Nanex of how a stock exchange is permanently prevented from going public.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1jURqPZ Tyler Durden

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Infinite World blog,

Quiz:

1. How much natural gas is the United States currently extracting?

(a) Barely enough to meet its own needs
(b) Enough to allow lots of exports
(c) Enough to allow a bit of exports
(d) The United States is a natural gas importer

Answer: (d) The United States is a natural gas importer, and has been for many years. The EIA is forecasting that by 2017, we will finally be able to meet our own natural gas needs.

In fact, this last year, with a cold winter, we have had a problem with excessively drawing down amounts in storage.

There is even discussion that at the low level in storage and current rates of production, it may not be possible to fully replace the natural gas in storage before next fall.

2. How much natural gas is the United States talking about exporting?

(a) A tiny amount, less than 5% of what it is currently producing.
(b) About 20% of what it is currently producing.
(c) About 40% of what it is currently producing.
(d) Over 60% of what it is currently producing.

The correct answer is (d) Over 60% what it is currently producing. If we look at the applications for natural gas exports found on the Energy.Gov website, we find that applications for exports total 42 billion cubic feet a day, most of which has already been approved.* This compares to US 2013 natural gas production of 67 billion cubic feet a day. In fact, if companies applying for exports build the facilities in, say, 3 years, and little additional natural gas production is ramped up, we could be left with less than half of current natural gas production for our own use.

*This is my calculation of the sum, equal to 38.51 billion cubic feet a day for Free Trade Association applications (and combined applications), and 3.25 for Non-Free Trade applications.

3. How much are the United States’ own natural gas needs projected to grow by 2030?

a. No growth
b. 12%
c. 50%
d. 150%

If we believe the US Energy Information Administration, US natural gas needs are expected to grow by only 12% between 2013 and 2030 (answer (a)). By 2040, natural gas consumption is expected to be 23% higher than in 2013. This is a little surprising for several reasons. For one, we are talking about scaling back coal use for making electricity, and we use almost as much coal as natural gas. Natural gas is an alternative to coal for this purpose.

Furthermore, the EIA expects US oil production to start dropping by 2020 (Figure 3, below), so logically we might want to use natural gas as a transportation fuel too.

We currently use more oil than natural gas, so this change could in theory lead to a 100% or more increase in natural gas use.

Many nuclear plants we now have in service will need to be replaced in the next 20 years. If we substitute natural gas in this area as well, it would further send US natural gas usage up. So the EIA’s forecast of US natural gas needs definitely seem on the “light” side.

4. How does natural gas’s production growth fit in with the growth of other US fuels according to the EIA?

(a) Natural gas is the only fuel showing much growth
(b) Renewables grow by a lot more than natural gas
(c) All fuels are growing

The answer is (a). Natural gas is the only fuel showing much growth in production between now and 2040.

Figure 4 below shows the EIA’s figure from its Annual Energy Outlook 2014 Early Release showing expected production of all types of fuels.

Natural gas is pretty much the only growth area, growing from 31% of total energy production in 2012 to 38% of total US energy production in 2040. Renewables are expected to grow from 11% to 12% of total US energy production (probably because the majority is hydroelectric, and this doesn’t grow much). All of the others fuels, including oil, are expected to shrink as percentages of total energy production between 2012 and 2040.

5. What is the projected path of natural gas prices:

(a) Growing slowly
(b) Ramping up quickly
(c) It depends on who you ask

It depends on who you ask: Answer (c). According to the EIA, natural gas prices are expected to remain quite low. The EIA provides a forecast of natural gas prices for electricity producers, from which we can estimate expected wellhead prices (Figure 5).

In this forecast, wellhead prices remain below $5.00 until 2028. Electricity companies look at these low price forecasts and assume that they should plan on ramping up electricity production from natural gas.

The catch–and the reason for all of the natural gas exports–is that most shale gas producers cannot produce natural gas at recent price levels. They need much higher price levels in order to make money on natural gas. We see one article after another on this subject: From Oil and Gas Journal; from Bloomberg; from the Financial Times. The Wall Street Journal quoted Exxon’s Rex Tillerson as saying, “We are all losing our shirts today. We’re making no money. It’s all in the red.”

Why all of the natural gas exports, if we don’t have very much natural gas, and the shale gas portion (which is the only portion with much potential for growth) is so unprofitable? The reason for all of the exports is too pump up the prices shale gas producers can get for their gas. This comes partly by engineering higher US prices (by shipping an excessive portion overseas) and partly by trying to take advantage of higher prices in Europe and Japan.

There are several catches in all of this. Dumping huge amounts of natural gas on world export markets is likely to sink the selling price of natural gas overseas, just as dumping shale gas on US markets sank US natural gas prices here (and misled some people, by making it look as if shale gas production is cheap). The amount of natural gas export capacity that is in the approval process is huge: 42 billion cubic feet per day. The European Union imports only about 30 billion cubic feet a day from all sources. This amount hasn’t increased since 2005, even though EU natural gas production has dropped. Japan’s imports amounted to 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day in 2012; China’s amounted to about 4 billion cubic feet. So in theory, if we try hard enough, there might be a place for the 42 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas to go–but it would take a huge amount of effort.

There are other issues involved, as well. The countries that are importing huge amounts of high-priced natural gas are not doing well financially. They aren’t going to be able to afford to import a whole lot more high-priced natural gas. In fact, a big part of the reason that they are not doing well financially is because they are paying so much for imported natural gas (and oil).

If the US has to pay these high prices for natural gas (even if we produce it ourselves), we won’t be doing very well financially either. In particular, companies who manufacture goods with electricity from high-priced natural gas will find that the goods they make are not competitive with goods made with cheaper fuels (coal, nuclear, or hydroelectric) in the world marketplace. This is a problem, whether the country produces the high-priced natural gas itself or imports it. So the issue is not an imported fuel problem; it is a high-priced fuel problem.

Another issue is that with shale gas, we are the high cost producer. There is a lot of natural gas production around the world, particularly in the Middle East, that is cheaper. If we add our high cost of shale gas to the high cost of shipping LNG long-distance across the Atlantic or Pacific, we will most definitely be the high cost producer. Other producers with lower costs (even local shale gas producers) can undercut our prices. So at best those shipping LNG overseas are likely to make mediocre profits.

And there would seem to be great temptation to stir up trouble, to encourage Europe to buy our natural gas exports, rather than Russia’s. Of course, our ability to provide this natural gas is not entirely clear. It makes a good story, with lots of “ifs” involved: “If we can really extract this natural gas. If the price can really go up and stay up. If you can wait long enough.” The story makes the US look more rich and powerful than it really is. We can even pretend to offer help to the Ukraine.

Perhaps the best outcome would be if virtually none of this natural gas export capacity ever gets built–approval or no approval. If it is really possible to get the natural gas out, we need it here instead. Or leave it in the ground.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1omlkOT Tyler Durden

Quite frankly, we are stumped…

• *WAL-MART SUED BY TRINITY CHURCH WALL STREET OVER GUNS, MUSIC

And rock’n’roll?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1mwO2YE Tyler Durden

Suleyman Aslan is the CEO of Turkey's second largest bank; so imagine how shocked police were when, as Bloomberg reports, they raided his home and found $4.5 million cash stashed in shoeboxes and bookshelves. When asked why the funds weren't deposited at the bank he ran, he said that would mean declaring their origin and registering them officially…something he clearly preferred not to do. Add to this a massive 44% surge in non-monetary gold exports (and who knows how much gold smuggled – once again preferring not to explain its origin) and it appears increasingly clear 'wealth' is being extricated from the increasingly totalitarian nation before confiscations begin following the 'successful' elections this weekend for the ruling AKP party.

 

Via Bloomberg,

When Turkish police raided the Istanbul home of Suleyman Aslan in December, they found $4.5 million stashed in three shoe boxes and hidden in bookshelves.

 

Aslan, then chief executive officer of the country’s second-largest state-owned bank, said in court that the money was donations collected for his alma mater in central Turkey and to help build a university in Macedonia. When asked why the funds weren’t deposited at the bank he ran, he said that would mean declaring their origin and registering them officially, according to accounts of his testimony in local newspapers.

 

Dozens of phone conversations purported to be police wiretaps and leaked over the Internet in recent weeks instead paint a portrait of a banker helping a businessman smuggle gold and transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran, evading U.S. sanctions. Surveillance photos said to be taken by police show similar boxes being delivered to Aslan’s home. The money was intended as bribes to ensure his cooperation, police allege.

In a separate investigation, Huseyin Aydin, CEO of Turkey’s largest government-owned bank, was overheard by police approving loans to businessmen who said they were under orders from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to buy a media company.

…

 

“What has come out in recent months is definitely raising concerns that maybe we’re back to the old days when these institutions were badly mismanaged,” said Alyssa Grzelak, a Washington-based senior economist for banking risk at research firm IHS Inc. “After the 2001 crisis, they were supposed to be cleaned up and no longer doing the bidding of politicians, but that seems to have been reversed.”

More corruption is coming to light…

In leaked recordings of phone calls allegedly made in October, Aydin can be heard talking to businessmen who say they have been ordered by Erdogan to buy Turkey’s Sabah newspaper and ATV television network. The calls were taped as part of a string of investigations that came to light on Dec. 17, when scores of people tied to Erdogan’s government were arrested or detained on charges including gold-smuggling, bribery and bid-rigging.

 

Transcripts of the conversations along with thousands of pages of documents have been leaked by unidentified people since the government dismissed and replaced police chiefs and prosecutors involved in the investigation, which Erdogan has said were part of an effort to undermine him in advance of the elections. While each sound recording is labeled and subtitled, the police reports include transcripts of conversations that haven’t been released and couldn’t independently be verified.

 

…

 

Erdogan, who acknowledged the veracity of some recordings, has tied them to a conspiracy by a faction of his governing party that has turned against him.

 

…

“We know so little about these new firms that have grown so fast thanks to their political connections,”

Additionally, Turkish exports of non-monetary gold in Feb. were worth $797m, 44.5% higher than yr earlier, according to Bloomberg calculation based on official data by state statistics office in Ankara.

 

One can only wonder how much was 'smuggled' as opposed to legally defined as exported as it appears increasingly clear 'wealth' is being extricated from the increasingly totalitarian nation before confiscations begin.

 

It seems there is anything but calm after the implicit vote of confidence for Erdogan…

 

Police use water canons against demo in Ankara, Turkey protesting local elections' results. @jmsardo http://ift.tt/1i04UTn

— PzFeed Top News (@PzFeed) April 1, 2014

#Turkey #police disperse #election #protestors http://t.co/0a1hXlQb1u #Ankara http://ift.tt/1gYwIMU

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) April 1, 2014

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1omcn8e Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Though many blame the Global Crash of 2015 for the loss of faith in stocks, others say the erosion dated back to at least 2014.

April 1, 2016: In an unprecedented move, Dow Jones announced that it was suspending its iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 large-cap stocks "due to lack of interest." The move caught the mainstream media by surprise, but those who had watched public interest and participation in the stock market dwindle in recent years expressed little shock.

"Now that everybody knows it's all rigged, that it's just a bunch of computers skimming from each other and a handful of daytraders, what's the point?" commented one former employee of a trading desk.

The few still employed on Wall Street were equally circumspect. "There's nobody here except a few techs running the machines," one lamented. "A couple of years ago guys were killing themselves because they'd lost a lot of money. Now we're dying of boredom."

"It's really rather surreal," one former financial journalist marveled. "The big trading desks are still making money 400 days in a row, the Federal Reserve is still pumping money into stocks, but nobody cares any more. Once they realized the market no longer had anything to do with the real economy or their future, they lost interest."

Though many blame the Global Crash of 2015 for the loss of faith in stocks, others say the erosion dated back to at least 2014, when the F.B.I. revealed its investigation into high-frequency trading (HFT), and the perception that the market was rigged went mainstream.

"There were plenty of buy-side analysts who said, 'OK, the market's rigged, so that means it's safe to pile in,'" the journalist noted. "But the Global Crash of 2015 mooted that guarantee."

A former financial analyst who now grows organic lettuce for a living observed, "As soon as all the suckers, and by that I don't mean Ma and Pa Kettle, I mean the pension funds and insurance companies, had their heads handed to them in the crash, it was game over. When the Fed started openly buying equities, the funds that had survived the crash didn't jump back in."

According to a well-connected observer who requested anonymity, public disgust extends beyond the rigged market to everyone who aided and abetted the scheme. "The F.B.I. investigates for two years but can't find anyone to prosecute. What does that say about our system of so-called justice? It's as rigged as the market."

Rating of financial news programs plummeted as the public lost interest, and most were cancelled due to poor ratings. Jim Cramer still hosts a web-based program touting stocks but the audience appears to be mostly hecklers who lost money following his "stay long and strong" advice just before the crash wiped out everyone who believed the Fed had their back.

One former Wall Streeter waxed nostalgic for the good old days when the stock market was still viewed as the road to legitimate riches. "It was really something else," he mused. "People believed the hype, they believed all the phony BS about the market being a level playing field and the Fed having their back, and they gave us their money willingly, even when it was obvious it was just a big embezzlement scheme."

Happy April Fools Day 2014.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/PezVfI Tyler Durden

The market may still be amused by Amazon’s latest forward P/E boosting gimmick in the form of its entertaining (and stock price boosting if only briefly) proposal to deliver packages (some of which haven’t even been ordered) by drone, but some US towns, tired of this endless invasion of just in time violators, are already taking aim at the messenger. Case in point: Deer Trail, Colorado, a city of 563, which Bloomberg reports, may approve today a measure that allows the town to issue hunting licenses for unmanned aerial vehicles, i.e., drones.

Apparently some luddites people still place civil rights over the potential of bottom line profits achieved through increasingly more intrusive technology. People like Phillip Steel, a 49-year-old welding inspector, who wrote the proposed law as a symbolic protest after hearing a radio news report that the federal government is drafting a plan to integrate drones into civilian airspace, he said. The measure sets a bounty of as much as $100 for a drone with U.S. government markings, although anyone who shoots at one could be subject to criminal or civil liability, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“That plan is a taking of property rights, a taking of civil rights,” said Steel, who wears a black duster coat and a cowboy hat. “According to a 1964 Supreme Court decision, a property owner owns airspace up to 1,000 feet above the ground.”

It also appears some Americans still value their privacy in an age when every US citizen is automatically expected to relinquish all private date to the NSA collective:

The Deer Trail ordinance highlights growing privacy concerns nationwide with the expanded use of camera-equipped drones, which can be as small as radio-controlled aircraft. Thirteen states enacted 16 laws addressing use of the tiny vehicles, and others are being considered in Indiana, Washington and Utah, according to the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures.

That said, one will hardly see the spirited approach as exhibited in libertarian Colorado towns spreading across the US:

The drone-hunting ordinance comes against a backdrop of secession votes last year in 11 rural Colorado counties seeking to form a 51st state — with five voting in favor of studying such a plan. The move followed the enactment of the toughest gun restrictions in the state in a decade in response to a deadly shooting in an Aurora movie theater.

And why should it – people elsewhere are far more concerned with getting their fake Facebook clicks.

What is perhaps more amusing is that the FAA, instead of resisting this latest push to fill the skies with buzzing entities, has already warned the Colorado town of retaliation:

The Deer Trail proposal would allow those holding a $25 hunting license to shoot at drones within the one-square-mile town limits. Even if approved, the ordinance is illegal, federal and state officials said.

 

A drone “hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air,” the FAA said in a statement. “Shooting at an unmanned aircraft could result in criminal or civil liability, just as would firing at a manned airplane.”

 

Congress asked the FAA to develop a plan to integrate drones into U.S. airspace by September, 2015. The agency estimates about 7,500 commercial unmanned aircraft will be operating within five years of being allowed in U.S. airspace.

In this case Congress is merely doing the bidding of corporations which are delighted to have their “delivery objects” fill the sky, and of course the NSA. So nothing new there. Still, should Deer Trail pass the measure, it will likely incite at least some comparable moves in other smaller US cities where people still haven’t completely lost their minds:

Steel was required to gather 19 signatures, or 5 percent of the registered voters in Deer Trail, to get the measure on the ballot. He turned in 23. Voter turnout is expected to be high in the town, located about 56 miles (90 kilometers) east of Denver, said Mayor Frank Fields, who is up for re-election.

 

“This could bring in some free money — that’s why I’m all for it,” Fields said.

 

The proposal allows town officials to spend as much as $10,000 in municipal funds to “establish an unmanned aerial vehicle recognition program.” Shooters must be on private property and are limited to three shots per so-called engagement, “unless there exists an imminent threat to life and safety.”

The vote on the measure will take place today – we eagerly look forward to the outcome, and even more eagerly wait to see if in case of successful passage, the FAA will finally give the official green light to weaponize drones flying above the US. You know, for self-defense purposes…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1jUsbgo Tyler Durden

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I’ve chronicled the saga of “buy-to-rent” for well over a year now. From some of its most exuberant phases to its now epic retreat (investment firm property purchases are now down 70% year-to-date).

It seems as if the pullback of private equity and hedge funds from this asset class is even more brutal in certain regions, with Blackstone now reporting its purchases in California down a staggering 90% this year.

Not to worry, I’m quite certain unemployed and deeply indebted recent college graduates will soon pick up the slack due to the anticipated resurgence of subprime lending.

From the LA Times:

This time last year, investment firms raced to buy dozens of single-family homes in neighborhoods from Fontana to South Los Angeles to lease them out, transforming the mom-and-pop rental business into a Wall Street juggernaut.

 

But now the firms themselves have all but stopped buying in Southern California, the latest evidence that home prices have hit a ceiling. The professional investors no longer see bargains here.

 

The real estate arm of Blackstone Group, the largest buyer, has cut its California purchases 90% over the last year, a spokesman said. Santa Monica company Colony Capital reports a similar retreat. Oaktree Capital of Los Angeles, meanwhile, is looking to cash out by selling its portfolio of more than 500 homes, many of them in Southern California.

But prices have since been flat in Southern California. Many families are taking a pass on the more expensive homes. And the math doesn’t work on Wall Street either.

"People want to live here, whether they buy or rent,” said Gary Beasley, chief executive of Oakland company Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust.

 

“Most of the low fruit has been harvested, but there’s still plenty of fruit in the tree,” Beasley said. “And we’ve got fruit pickers.”

 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1koFwcP Tyler Durden