Tag: news

Close Encounter Of The Tornado Kind: Watch What Happens When Nature’s Fury Is Unleashed

Aside from the impressively calm demeanor of the gentleman holding the video camera, this disturbing clip of the Washington Tornado’s power offers a helpful (if not terrifying) analogy for how quickly calm serene surroundings (e.g. stock markets) can be “freaking destroyed” almost instantly by an external force.

 

 

And for the Keynesians, before you start babbling about the GDP growth in the rebuild – please visit the Broken Window Fallacy truth page.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/nX2Vf8vovok/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Jacob Sullum on How Poker Became a Crime

Jacob Sullum reviews
Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt
Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire-and How It All
Came Crashing Down. He says the engaging, novelistic style
brings home the human consequences of the moralistic crusade
against online gambling. 

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/22/jacob-sullum-on-how-poker-became-a-crime
via IFTTT

Spot The Manipulated FX Market Moment

With regulators finally catching on that banks are manipulating every asset class, the largest of them all – foreign exchange – has come under scrutiny. Most specifically, there is considerable attention being paid to manipulation at the “London Close” around 11amET each day. Judge for yourself – see anything ‘odd’ around that time of day?

 

 

 

Source: Nanex


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/bbd3Vte2O5g/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Did a Top Obamacare Tech Official Mislead Congress About the Decision to Delay Obamacare's Shopping Feature?

Did a top Obamacare tech
official lie to Congress about whether or not a key Obamacare
website function was delayed for political considerations?

In a congressional hearing earlier this month, Henry Chao, the
Deputy IT director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, was asked whether there were any political considerations
involved in the last-minute decision to delay the “anonymous
shopper” function at Obamacare’s online insurance portal,
Healthcare.gov.

He responded that there were “none whatsoever.”

“I look at the facts of whether—if a system is going to be
ready,” Chao
said, “and of course not everything is going to be 100 percent
perfect, and there are certain tolerances. But in this case it
failed so miserably that we could not consciously use it.”

But that’s not what happened,
according to CNN, which reports that insider documents confirm
that, in fact, the feature passed a test of its functionality
shortly before the October 1 launch of Healthcare.gov. From CNN’s
report: 

When the troubled federal health care website came online,
the key “Anonymous Shopper” function was nowhere to be found —
even though it passed a key test almost two weeks before
HealthCare.gov launched.

That successful test, noted in documents obtained by CNN and
confirmed by a source close to the project, contradicts testimony
from an Obama administration official overseeing HealthCare.gov,
who told lawmakers earlier this month the function was scrapped
because it “failed miserably” before the October 1 launch.

Perhaps the CNN story is missing some key information. We don’t
know, for example, if there was perhaps another test that did
fail—one that convinced the health site’s tech team that the
function wasn’t worth implementing.

But there’s some reason to think that CNN’s story is not
incomplete, and that Chao, in his response, did not tell the truth.
The CNN report backs up, and seems to confirm, an October report in
The Wall Street Journal, which
said that the federally run insurance portal “was initially
going to include an option to browse before registering, but that
tool was delayed.” The Journal report included an
explanation for why the function was removed—an explanation that
said nothing about technical failures. “An HHS spokeswoman said the
agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility
for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started
seeing the prices of policies.”

In other words, officials didn’t want people to see the true
price of the insurance premiums on offer through the exchanges, so
they created a system which only allowed for plan shopping after
subsidy eligibility was confirmed. 

That doesn’t sound like it was simply a question of system
readiness, as Chao claimed before Congress. And if Chao lied about
the test results, it’s reasonable to wonder whether he also misled
about the reasoning for disabling the feature.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/22/did-a-top-obamacare-tech-official-mislea
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Did a Top Obamacare Tech Official Mislead Congress About the Decision to Delay Obamacare’s Shopping Feature?

Did a top Obamacare tech
official lie to Congress about whether or not a key Obamacare
website function was delayed for political considerations?

In a congressional hearing earlier this month, Henry Chao, the
Deputy IT director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, was asked whether there were any political considerations
involved in the last-minute decision to delay the “anonymous
shopper” function at Obamacare’s online insurance portal,
Healthcare.gov.

He responded that there were “none whatsoever.”

“I look at the facts of whether—if a system is going to be
ready,” Chao
said, “and of course not everything is going to be 100 percent
perfect, and there are certain tolerances. But in this case it
failed so miserably that we could not consciously use it.”

But that’s not what happened,
according to CNN, which reports that insider documents confirm
that, in fact, the feature passed a test of its functionality
shortly before the October 1 launch of Healthcare.gov. From CNN’s
report: 

When the troubled federal health care website came online,
the key “Anonymous Shopper” function was nowhere to be found —
even though it passed a key test almost two weeks before
HealthCare.gov launched.

That successful test, noted in documents obtained by CNN and
confirmed by a source close to the project, contradicts testimony
from an Obama administration official overseeing HealthCare.gov,
who told lawmakers earlier this month the function was scrapped
because it “failed miserably” before the October 1 launch.

Perhaps the CNN story is missing some key information. We don’t
know, for example, if there was perhaps another test that did
fail—one that convinced the health site’s tech team that the
function wasn’t worth implementing.

But there’s some reason to think that CNN’s story is not
incomplete, and that Chao, in his response, did not tell the truth.
The CNN report backs up, and seems to confirm, an October report in
The Wall Street Journal, which
said that the federally run insurance portal “was initially
going to include an option to browse before registering, but that
tool was delayed.” The Journal report included an
explanation for why the function was removed—an explanation that
said nothing about technical failures. “An HHS spokeswoman said the
agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility
for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started
seeing the prices of policies.”

In other words, officials didn’t want people to see the true
price of the insurance premiums on offer through the exchanges, so
they created a system which only allowed for plan shopping after
subsidy eligibility was confirmed. 

That doesn’t sound like it was simply a question of system
readiness, as Chao claimed before Congress. And if Chao lied about
the test results, it’s reasonable to wonder whether he also misled
about the reasoning for disabling the feature.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/22/did-a-top-obamacare-tech-official-mislea
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Wisconsin Bill Aims to Limit Police Use of License Plate Readers

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin politicians are
working on legislation to limit the use of automatic license plate
readers by police. Local police chiefs have voiced their
disapproval, but the politicians contend that protecting civil
liberties must take precedence.

The Wisconsin State Journal
explains the basic features of a new bill, which Republicans
Rep. David Craig and Sen. Tom Tiffany and Democrat Rep. Fred
Kessler (D) circulated for co-sponsorship this week:

The bill would allow the cameras to be turned on only during the
investigation of a crime. It also would prohibit sharing the stored
information with non-government entities and require data
destruction within 48 hours, unless it was necessary for a criminal
investigation.

This would be a dramatic reduction of what officers are
currently allowed to do. The State Journal
revealed earlier this year that police agencies in Dane County,
where the capital city Madison is located, used 24-hour
surveillance to record over 4 million licenses plates in 3 years.
They planned on holding onto those records for 7 years.

Local police chiefs responded critically to the bill, stating
that no civil rights violations have occurred and that limiting
their use of license plate recorders would impair their ability to
effectively solve crimes. Nevertheless, they offered this week to
limit the license plate data retention to a single year.

This is not enough for Craig, though. “Seven years is
unacceptable. One year is unacceptable,” he said to the State
Journal, explaining that the practice is “imperiling civil
liberties. You have this technology that has been used that without
limits by the Legislature can lead to some very, very bad outcomes
for constitutional rights.” The representative told
WXOW, a local ABC affiliate, that he’s “concerned not about
criminals, I’m concerned about ‘John Q Public’ that obeys the
law and how long his information is on the books,” because
“government has the propensity to bungle personal information.”

Craig’s concerns may not be unwarranted. As Reason‘s
J.D. Tuccille and Scott Shackford have highlighted, the use of this
police technology in other states has led to behavior that ranges
from
creepy to outright
abusive. The American
Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier
Foundation have also covered the various dangers license plate
readers pose.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/22/wisconsin-bipartisan-bill-aims-to-limit
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Bill Ackman Admits $500 Million Herbalife Loss, Stock Surge Adds To Pain

Herbalife shares are soaring this morning. The reason, it seems, is unclear; but Bill Ackman's appearance on Bloomberg TV to press his shorts a little more may just have emboldened those looking to squeeze the asset manager:

  • *ACKMAN: HERBALIFE LONGS DID PRETTY GOOD JOB OF SHORT SQUEEZING
  • *ACKMAN SAYS HE'S LOST $400M TO $500M ON HERBALIFE SHORT
  • *ACKMAN SAYS `LOTS OF WAYS WE CAN BE SUCCESSFUL' ON HLF
  • *ACKMAN SAYS HE'LL TAKE HERBALIFE BET 'TO THE END OF THE EARTH'

Ackman added that he "skeptical" of Icahn's long-term interest, and "puzzled" by Stiritz' motivations. It seems – other than fear-mongering – the stock is rising on the basis Ackman has nothing new to add…

  • *ACKMAN SAYS HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT FTC IS DOING ON HERBALIFE
  • *ACKMAN: RE-AUDIT IS A SHORT TERM CATALYST IF NOT DONE BY DEC
  • *ACKMAN SAYS HERBALIFE FITS FTC OCT PYRAMID WARNING
  • *ACKMAN'S PERSHING HAS MET WITH FOREIGN REGULATORS HERBALIFE
  • *ACKMAN: HERBALIFE RE-AUDIT SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETED BY NOW

 

As we noted in January 2, 2013

In short- could HLF, with 24% of its stock short, and where institutions control more than 76% of the shares outstanding, become the next Volkswagen squeeze play, and send the stock soaring far higher than ever before, in the process destroying Ackman (assuming he has still not covered his short), Tilson, and anyone else still short the name?

Maybe the answer to this question is just how much animosity does management harbor toward those very publicly short its stock. We hope to find out soon enough.

  • *ACKMAN SAYS AN HERBALIFE LBO IS MORE OPPORTUNITY TO GO SHORT

and the final nail in the coffin…

  • *ACKMAN SAYS HERBALIFE SHORT `NOT A TRADE FOR ME'

One has to wonder what his JCP "trade" started out as?


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/fR5r_AbQC9Q/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Europe Unveils Its Latest Deus Ex Machina Growth Bazooka: Encourage Debt-Cutting "Reform" With Even More Debt

A year ago, in order to prevent the collapse of the Eurozone, the ECB came out with the first (of many) deus ex machina bazooka when it unveiled the OMT – a massive project so ambitious, it never actually existed (its legal term sheet has never been unveiled and never will be unveiled simply because it is by definition impossible) but was merely intended to scare everyone into submission by the ECB’s sheer will (or stupidity – it is still unclear which prevailed). One day, the OMT will be tested only to reveal it was never meant to be put into use, but until that day Mario Draghi managed to buy Europe some time. Today, the Eurozone unveiled just how it plans to spend that time – by coming up with deus ex plan #2: much more (unfunded) debt.

Just out from Reuters:

  • EURO ZONE COUNTRIES CONSIDERING CHEAP LOANS AS INCENTIVE FOR GOVERNMENTS TO ENACT ECON REFORMS-DOCUMENT
  • TO QUALIFY, COUNTRIES WOULD HAVE TO DRAW UP LEGALLY BINDING PLAN FOR REFORM APPROVED BY MEMBER STATES-DOC
  • LOANS WOULD NOT BE LINKED TO COST OF REFORM BUT MEANT AS GENERAL SUPPORT FOR THE ECONOMY-DOCUMENT
  • LOANS FOR REFORMS WOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE TO COUNTRIES RUNNING EXCESSIVE MACROECONOMIC IMBALANCES OR UNDER BAILOUT-DOC

In other words, “encourage” debt-cutting reforms by dangling the carrot of even more debt.

Circular reasoning aside, this is fine and good – as we have shown many times in the past, the biggest failure of the Eurozone currently is the complete collapse of its monetary piping, as private loan creation growth in the Eurozone drops to record low after record low with every passing month.

And since European inflation just took a turn for the worse, absent some massive debt-boost strategy things will only get worse. Which in turn explains why suddenly Europe is fixated – once again – on pumping inflation stimulating debt at any cost.

So while on the surface this plan would make sense, if only to buy Europe some more time, before the revelation that the current setup simply does not work, there is one major snag:

  • NO FIRM PLAN YET HOW TO FINANCE THE LOANS, WHICH COULD BECOME THE NUCLEUS OF A EURO ZONE BUDGET-DOC

Oops. Then again, there is always the ECB, which everyone now expected to unveil some new and improved inflation-boosting project in the near future. One can only assume they will somehow be involved in the “financing” component.

And finally there is another problem:

  • DIJSSELBLOEM REJECTS IDEA OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR REFORMS
  • DIJSSELBLOEM IN FAVOR OF DEADLINES FOR REFORMS: HANDELSBLATT

Ah Europe, never a dull day. At least we would be tentatively inching back into those 3x levered Brussels caterer ETFs. Because the return of European summits seems just around the horizon…


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/UKGNfCpXvlM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Europe Unveils Its Latest Deus Ex Machina Growth Bazooka: Encourage Debt-Cutting “Reform” With Even More Debt

A year ago, in order to prevent the collapse of the Eurozone, the ECB came out with the first (of many) deus ex machina bazooka when it unveiled the OMT – a massive project so ambitious, it never actually existed (its legal term sheet has never been unveiled and never will be unveiled simply because it is by definition impossible) but was merely intended to scare everyone into submission by the ECB’s sheer will (or stupidity – it is still unclear which prevailed). One day, the OMT will be tested only to reveal it was never meant to be put into use, but until that day Mario Draghi managed to buy Europe some time. Today, the Eurozone unveiled just how it plans to spend that time – by coming up with deus ex plan #2: much more (unfunded) debt.

Just out from Reuters:

  • EURO ZONE COUNTRIES CONSIDERING CHEAP LOANS AS INCENTIVE FOR GOVERNMENTS TO ENACT ECON REFORMS-DOCUMENT
  • TO QUALIFY, COUNTRIES WOULD HAVE TO DRAW UP LEGALLY BINDING PLAN FOR REFORM APPROVED BY MEMBER STATES-DOC
  • LOANS WOULD NOT BE LINKED TO COST OF REFORM BUT MEANT AS GENERAL SUPPORT FOR THE ECONOMY-DOCUMENT
  • LOANS FOR REFORMS WOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE TO COUNTRIES RUNNING EXCESSIVE MACROECONOMIC IMBALANCES OR UNDER BAILOUT-DOC

In other words, “encourage” debt-cutting reforms by dangling the carrot of even more debt.

Circular reasoning aside, this is fine and good – as we have shown many times in the past, the biggest failure of the Eurozone currently is the complete collapse of its monetary piping, as private loan creation growth in the Eurozone drops to record low after record low with every passing month.

And since European inflation just took a turn for the worse, absent some massive debt-boost strategy things will only get worse. Which in turn explains why suddenly Europe is fixated – once again – on pumping inflation stimulating debt at any cost.

So while on the surface this plan would make sense, if only to buy Europe some more time, before the revelation that the current setup simply does not work, there is one major snag:

  • NO FIRM PLAN YET HOW TO FINANCE THE LOANS, WHICH COULD BECOME THE NUCLEUS OF A EURO ZONE BUDGET-DOC

Oops. Then again, there is always the ECB, which everyone now expected to unveil some new and improved inflation-boosting project in the near future. One can only assume they will somehow be involved in the “financing” component.

And finally there is another problem:

  • DIJSSELBLOEM REJECTS IDEA OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR REFORMS
  • DIJSSELBLOEM IN FAVOR OF DEADLINES FOR REFORMS: HANDELSBLATT

Ah Europe, never a dull day. At least we would be tentatively inching back into those 3x levered Brussels caterer ETFs. Because the return of European summits seems just around the horizon…


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/UKGNfCpXvlM/story01.htm Tyler Durden