Market Manipulation On Display

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US to access Europeans' bank data in new deal

Euro MPs have approved a new deal to allow US anti-terror investigators to access Europeans' bank data.

The vote followed tough negotiations with US authorities after a previous agreement was blocked by the European Parliament in February.

EU negotiators say the new deal gives EU officials authority to monitor the US investigators' actions.

The deal gives the US access to bulk data from Swift, a firm that handles millions of bank transactions daily.

Washington says the Swift deal is crucial to fighting terrorism, as part of the US Terrorist Financing Tracking Programme (TFTP) set up after the September 2001 attacks on the US.

Privacy concerns

Top US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, lobbied the EU over the data transfer deal.

Continue reading the main story

This sends the right signals about our resolve in fighting terrorism and our commitment to remaining a strong partner of the United States

Timothy Kirkhope UK Conservative MEP Q&A: US data deal with Europe

The agreement was passed with 484 MEPs in favour and 109 against. There were 12 abstentions.

In February Euro MPs rejected an earlier draft agreement, saying the privacy safeguards were inadequate.

The fact that the US was secretly accessing Swift bank data did not come to light until 2006.

Under the new deal, the EU police agency Europol will assess whether specific data requests are necessary for the fight against terrorism before the data is sent to the US, the European Commission says.

The Commission will appoint EU officials to monitor the US investigators' actions.

There is also a requirement that bulk data can never be sent to third countries.

EU citizens who believe their data has been misused will have the right to legal action in the US courts.

'Sends right signals'

The Commission says the data transferred under TFTP can include identifying information about the originator and/or recipient of the transaction, including name, address, national identification number and other personal data related to financial messages.

A German Liberal MEP, Alexander Alvaro, said the deal "will ensure that terrorist financing can be traced back to its sources, but it will not affect day-to-day bank transfers of EU citizens".

And the leader of the UK Conservative MEPs, Timothy Kirkhope, said it "sends the right signals about our resolve in fighting terrorism and our commitment to remaining a strong partner of the United States".

The lobby group European Digital Rights (EDRI) says the new deal is still not restrictive enough. It will allow a great deal of data to be transferred to the US, EDRI says, doubting that aggrieved EU citizens will get any legal redress in the US.

EDRI also says Europol is the wrong vehicle to vet US anti-terror requests, because Europol itself will be able to request data from US searches, and that "drastically reduces any incentive to limit the transferred amount of data".

A judicial body, not the police, should be in charge, it argues.

Wells Fargo to Cut 3,800 Jobs, Close Financing Unit in forum [NotSoBreaking]

Wells Fargo Cuts 3,800 Jobs because the economy is all better my saracasm.

John Stumpf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg

Wells Fargo & Co., the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets, said it will eliminate 3,800 jobs and close its consumer-finance unit.

The lender will take a charge of $185 million, with $137 million, or 2 cents a share, taken in the second quarter, the San Francisco-based company said today in a statement. The unit will close 638 independent consumer-finance branches and stop making non-prime home loans, the statement said.

“The economics of a separate Wells Fargo Financial channel are no longer viable, especially now that our customers have access to the largest banking and mortgage store network in the United States,” David Kvamme, president of Wells Fargo Financial, said in the statement.

Wells Fargo is the top mortgage lender in the U.S. and the fourth-largest bank after purchasing Wachovia Corp. for $12.7 billion in 2008. Auto, home and credit-card loans will continue to be made from retail branches. Less than 2 percent of the bank’s real estate loans were originated in the Wells Fargo Financial network, according to the statement.

Wells Fargo Financial is the division that sold consumer loans and mortgages, including subprime at one time and home equity loans, to borrowers with blemished credit.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dakin Campbell in San Francisco at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net

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All men are Greeks, but few of them know it.

Retailers post tepid June, start to discount more

NEW YORK — Americans didn't go on many shopping sprees in June, resulting in sluggish sales for many retailers. It often took deeply discounted clothing to get shoppers to spend - and then only if they needed it.

The lackluster performance, being compared with a weak June 2009, is raising concerns about the back-to-school shopping season and the health of the economic recovery.

The International Council of Shopping Centers' index of June retail sales saw a 3 percent increase, the low end of its growth forecast that ranged from 3 to 4 percent. But that's compared with a 5.1 percent decline in the year-ago period.

The figures are based on revenue at stores open at least a year and are a key indicator of retailers' health.

June's results were inflated by a late Memorial Day weekend, which lifted results by 1 percentage point last month and deflated May by the same amount, according to Mike Niemira, chief economist at ICSC.

After ramping up spending surprisingly in the first quarter, shoppers have hunkered down since April. Some worry they'll continue to be tight-fisted through the holiday shopping season.

"My sense is that the consumer is very cautious at this stage given the state of the labor market, the housing market," said Ken Perkins, president of research firm RetailMetrics. "June sales are going to reflect that caution." A sluggish June sets up a "disappointing back-to-school season," he said. "I think (back-to-school) is going to be very promotional."

As merchants reported their results Thursday, Costco Wholesale Corp. posted a solid revenue gain, but it was fueled by its international business. Target Corp. posted a modest gain that was below Wall Street expectations. Many teen merchants including American Eagle Outfitters Inc., The Buckle Inc., Hot Topic Inc. and The Wet Seal Inc. reported decreases in revenue.

Among the bright spots were Limited Brands Inc., which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. Department store operators Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. also had solid gains that were better than expected.

June is a time when stores clear out summer goods to make room for back-to-school merchandise. But analysts say discounting was heavier than expected as stores had to work hard to pull in shoppers continuing to grapple with a deluge of financial issues. Such deeper-than-planned discounting resulted in some stores, including American Eagle Outfitters and Wet Seal, trimming profit forecasts Thursday.

Clothing stores accelerated discounting toward the end of June after not getting enough business, BMO Capital Markets analyst John Morris said. He estimated that discounts at the mall clothing chains he tracks was even with a year ago even as stores carry less inventory than a year ago. Discounting was down 5 percent in May from a year earlier, after being down 10 percent from February through April, Morris said.

Uncertainty is growing as evidence mounts - from disappointing housing data to sluggish hiring - that the recovery is stalling heading into the second half of 2010. And that is when the benefits of most of the government's stimulus spending will begin to fade.

Consumers also saw their retirement funds erode further as the Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined 13 percent from its late April peak.

Such economic concerns drove down consumer confidence by 10 points in June, reversing three straight gains, according to The Conference Board.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new claims for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week, but they have yet to reach levels that most economists say would point to robust job creation.

Against this environment,even discounters and wholesale club operators are fighting for every dollar from consumers.

Costco said Thursday that revenue in stores open at least one year rose 4 percent in June, boosted by international results. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, on average, expected a 4.2 percent gain.

Target posted a disappointing 1.7 percent gain. Clothing, food, and health and beauty products were strong sellers. But electronics, video games, music and movies were weaker.

Among department stores, Macy's enjoyed a 6.5 percent gain in June. Penney enjoyed a 4.5 percent gain. Saks Inc., which operates Saks Fifth Avenue, rose 2.5 percent in June.

Limited Brands, which operates Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works, said it posted a 6 percent gain.

But preppy teen clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch Co., which has struggled with declines, posted a 9 percent increase, but it's still a long way from making up last year's 32 percent drop.

The figures cover the period from May 30 through Saturday. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, stopped reporting monthly results last year.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Consumer Bankruptcies Up 14 Percent In First Half Of 2010

Mitchell Jaworski - AHN News Reporter

Alexandria, VA, United States (AHN) - The American Bankruptcy Institute reported Friday that consumer bankruptcy filings totaled 770,117 in the first six months of the year.

Bankruptcies are up 14 percent compared to the 675,351 registered in the first half of 2009 as Americans continue to battle high debt levels and a weak labor market.

"Years of rising consumer debt and low savings rates, combined with the housing and unemployment crises, are causing bankruptcy levels not seen since the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code," said ABI Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano. "We expect that there will be more than 1.6 million new bankruptcy filings by year end."

Bankruptcy filings in June reached 126,270, an 8.5 percent rise from the same month a year ago. However, June filings were 7.8 percent lower than May, which saw 136,142.

Of the bankruptcy filings in June, 27 percent were Chapter 13 filings. Chapter 13 is for individuals with regular income whose debts do not exceed specific amounts; typically such filings are used to budget some of the debtor's future earnings under a plan in which unsecured creditors are paid back.

Mystery of the lost files in Sarkozy illegal cash payments scandal

Damning documents implicating Nicolas Sarkozy in illegal cash payments mysteriously disappeared before being 'found' again yesterday by police.

Extracts from the accounting reocrds, published in the newspaper Liberation, suggested that Lilliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman, gave 100,000 euros to man named only as 'Monsieur'.

Detectives in Paris have launched an investigation into illegal cash payments allegedly made to Nicolas Sarkozy by L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt

A prosecution source said: 'They're now at the centre of the criminal investigation.

'Mrs Bettencourt thought she had lost them, but they were then found again by detectives.'

Mrs Bettencourt, the billionaire L'Oreal heiress, is said to have provided Mr Sarkozy with 'manila envelopes stuffed with cash' following dinner parties at her mansion house in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Mr Sarkozy was once mayor and still keeps a home.

Claire Thibout, a 52-year-old accountant who helped manage Mrs Bettencourt's fortune, has told detectives she personally collected some of the money from a cashpoint.

Liberation today writes: 'It's necessary to go back to the month of January 2007 to find confirmation of the claims of the accountant, which refer to important withdrawals designated for political financing.

'On January 26, 100,000 euros were handed over to an unnamed man', reports the newspaper, publishing a ledger which mysteriously marks the beneficiary as 'Monsieur'.

Front page news: Mr Sarkozy has said he is the victim of a smear campaign as the allegations have plunged him into a fresh crisis

Mrs Thibout's lawyer, Antoine Gillot, said: 'My client is categorical. When you take out 100,000 euros for Mrs Bettencourt, it's not because it's going to the hairdresser.'

Much of the money is thought to have come from Swiss accounts, which Mrs Bettencourt had not declared to the French tax authorities.

Mr Gillot said Mrs Thibout was under 'enormous pressure' and that police had travelled to the South of France to bring her back to Paris for further interviews.

LILIANE BETTENCOURT

* Mrs Bettencourt owns 31 per cent of L'Oreal and is worth an estimated £13billion.

* She is the only child of Eugene Schueller, the founder of the cosmetic giant.

* In 1950, she married French politician Andre Bettencourt and the couple have one daughter, Francoise, who is on L'Oreal's board of directors.

* Mrs Bettencourt claims to have lost money in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.

* In December last year, her daughter launched a civil lawsuit to try to have Mrs Bettencourt declared legally irresponsible and placed under the authority of the court for spending too much money.

* Secret tape recordings emerged last month which allegedly reveal Mrs Bettencourt had undeclared holdings in the Seychelles and Switzerland.

She is now likely to be given the official status of a witness in the criminal investigation being coordinated by Nanterre prosecutors.

Mrs Bettencourt's lawyer, Georges Kiejman, meanwhile claimed that the accounting documents helped contradict Mrs Thibout's claims.

Pointing to a photocopy of the ledger on French TV, he said that 50,000 euros taken from a Paris bank on March 26 2007 did not end up in Mr Sarkozy's presidential election campaign coffers, as has been claimed.

Instead the money was clearly marked as having gone on 'food shopping' and to a 'bookbinder', said Mr Kiejman.

A furious Mr Sarkozy has denounced the allegations against him as 'libel that aims only to smear, without the slightest basis in reality'.

Mrs Thibout has also pointed to Eric Woerth, a senior minister and treasurer of Mr Sarkozy's UMP party, as being at the centre of the alleged corruption.

Mr Woerth, whose wife was a financial adviser to Mrs Bettencourt until she resigned last month, has resisted opposition calls to stand down.

He also denies all wrongdoing or any conflict of interest when he held parallel offices as party treasurer and, until March, budget minister.

'I did not receive a single euro illegally,' said Mr Woerth.

A recent opinion poll found that nearly two-thirds of the French public believe their political leaders are corrupt.

While Big Easy Takes on Oil, Obama Sues Arizona!

President Barack Obama, fresh off his "kick ass" success in rescuing Afghanistan from the poor judgment of General Stanley McCrystal, decided to expand his newly-minted toughness to domestic affairs.

Unfortunately, the poor judgment that was supposed to exit with the deposed general has taken up residence in the president's own immature mind.

As reported, in part, at reference 1, the Big Easy, still in recovery from W.'s Katrina, is now taking on oil from the Obama fiasco:

"NEW ORLEANS - Oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in the 1990s.

It (Lake Pontchartrain) is threatened again after a weekend when tar balls and an oil sheen pushed by strong winds from faraway Hurricane Alex slipped past lines of barges that were supposed to block the passes connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the lake."

Adding to the environmental misery, tar balls have made their way to Galveston Texas, the first evidence that oil has reached the Texas coastline.

While the worst environmental disaster in history spreads to Big Easy and all of the Gulf States, Barack Hussein Obama, in a snit of poor judgment and political fraud, has unleashed the vast powers and resources of the U.S. Government against the state of Arizona for its tough, and long overdue, anti-illegal alien bill.

Call Obama's hideous meddling what you wish, pandering to illegal aliens, or trolling for votes among those who oppose secure borders and the rule of law, the fact is that Barack Obama has taken his eye off the tar balls long enough to attack a sovereign entity of the United States.

Which is either incredibly poor judgment, or out and out treason, or, most probably, both.

In attacking Arizona and the American citizens residing there, Obama and his Marxist menaces continue to push amnesty for invading criminals based on these outrageous lies:

Our Borders Are Secure: Liberals have concocted a foolish argument to counter the "secure the borders first" demands from people who really care about American sovereignty.

Namely, Obama and leftist moon bats like Pete Stark of California are fond of saying that the borders ARE secure!

This falsehood is incredibly shallow, given the fact that there are millions of Illegals here. If the borders are indeed secure, how in the hell did they get in?

And how is it that Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was murdered by Illegals from Mexico on his own property in March?

There Are Only 12 Million Illegals Here: Desperate moon bats even try to lie about the number of illegal aliens currently here. The number 12 million, in and of itself a scandal and outrage, is clearly understated by a factor of three or more.

In fact, there are probably closer to 40 million illegal aliens squatting in America right now.

Why in the world would any intelligent person with the slightest love for American values wish to grant citizenship to 40 million invading criminals, most of whom are uneducated, penniless, and non-English speaking?

Illegals Contribute to Our Economy and Society: Liberals, looking for newcomers who can be convinced to vote Democrat after being showered with benefits reserved for citizens, love to claim that illegal aliens are a net gain to the U.S. economy.

In truth, of course, illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars as year.

As reported, in part, at Reference 2:

"The cost of harboring illegal immigrants in the United States is a staggering $113 billion a year - an average of $1,117 for every "native-headed" household in America - according to a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

"The study, a copy of which was provided to FoxNews.com, "is the first and most detailed look at the costs of illegal immigration ever done," says Bob Dane, director of communications at FAIR, a conservative organization that seeks to end almost all immigration.

"FAIR's report argues that there are two choices in the immigration debate: "One choice is pursuing a strategy that discourages future illegal migration and increasingly diminishes the current illegal alien population through denial of job opportunities and deportations. The other choice," it says, "would repeat the unfortunate decision made in 1986 to adopt an amnesty that invited continued illegal migration."

Again, why would any intelligent citizen with even a smidgen of love for America agree to amnesty for invading criminals who cost American taxpayers $113 billion a year?

The answer: U.S. policy is NOT in the hands of intelligent citizens who have even a smidgen of love for America.

Rather, we are governed by an administration of men and women of incredibly poor judgment who despise American language, culture, and values!

Reference 1

Reference 2

John Lillpop is a recovering liberal, 'clean and sober' since 1992 when last he voted for a Democrat. Pray for John: He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where people like Nancy Pelosi are considered reasonable! Writing is his passion. He loves creating lively copy with irony and humor!