POSTS:   THURSDAY 07-15-10

GEO-POLITICAL TENSIONS - ISRAEL / KOREA / IRAN

IRAN

Oxford Research Group Concludes Israeli Attack On Iran Would Start Long War  ZH

ISRAEL

KOREA 

Debt brakes for Euroland: Strengthening  the stability pact with national debt rules DBR

GREECE

SPAIN / PORTUGAL

Spain 'relying on short-term funding' as councils go bust Pritchard

Portugal, Italy auctions garner solid market response Reuters

FRANCE

GERMANY

ITALY

Italy prepares to pass austerity package  FT

UK

Excuse Me Again But Britain's Public Debt Doubled Again Overnight to Now £4 TRILLION Prudent Investor

ICELAND

Post-Crisis Iceland: Miracle or Illusion? CFR

JAPAN

CHINA

China growth slows in second quarter  FT

Economy grew by 11.1% in the first half of the year

USA

Sales at U.S. Retailers Fell for a Second Month in June BL Census
Federal  budget gap tops $1 trillion through June AP

Mohamed El-ErianStress test is no short-cut to stability  FT

Fed Officials Saw No Need for More Stimulus, Trimmed Forecasts BL

Fed Minutes

Fed cuts its 2010 growth forecast FT

US central bank considers more stimulus measures

Rosengren: Growth Slowing, Deflation Is Emerging Risk WSJ

Jim Grant Is Confident QE 2.0 Is Just Around The Corner  ZH

Jim Grant, one of the most respected voices in the financial industry, joins Zero Hedge and others, who see that the only choice the Federal Reserve has now that the temporary and shallow reprieve from the clutches of the deflationary depression is over, is to print more money in the form of another iteration of QE. Whether this will be another $2.5 trillion, like last time, which was the price of an 18 month delay of the inevitable, or a $5 trillion concerted global effort, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard believes, is irrelevant: the only option the central printers, pardon, bankers, have left is to flood the market with yet more worthless paper (keep an eye out on the doubling in the price of gold the second QE2 is publicly announced, which will also double as the obituary for all fiat paper). In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Grant says that the first order of business tomorrow when the Fed's new additions officially join their new groupthink perpetuating employer will be "to try once more to print enough dollars to make something happen in the U.S. economy.” The ever-sarcastic Grant manages to completely skewer Janet Yellen, Steve Diamond and Sarah Bloom Raskin, to ridicule the Fed's 100% track record of not only focusing on the wrong thing time after time, but getting the response consistently wrong with 100% precision, and also manages to makes fun of the Fed's credentialed WSJ lackeys, who courtesy of the Fed's "editorial" control over the reporting process, get a direct line into leakable Fed strategy.

In an interview on Tom Keene's Bloomberg radioshow today, Nouriel Roubini

"The government must maintain fiscal stimulus in the near term before gradually reducing spending and raising revenue to rebound from the longest U.S. economic slump since the Great Depression, said Roubini, 52. A value-added sales tax is probably “the best idea on the table” to contain the federal deficit once the recovery gains momentum, according to Roubini. Making a commitment to a fiscal plan will prevent markets from “getting spooked,” said Roubini, who in August 2006 predicted a “painful” U.S. recession that came to fruition in December 2007."

STATE & LOCAL GOVERNMENT

& 

State tax revenues rise -- finally! CNN  PDF File

Uh-Oh- Illinois Just Passed Iceland On The List Of Government Default Risks  BI

Yesterday's abrupt announcement of a another massive bond offering hasn't helped Illinois's default probability (via Dian Chu). The Prairie State has passed Iceland on CMA's list and is closing in on Iraq:: 18 States Facing The Most Brutal Austerity Cuts

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE

DODD FRANK ACT

Lies Divide, Truth Unites  Dylan Ratigan

The good news in America today is that many of lies from our leaders and media no longer seem to be working.  Four out of five people view the current proposed financial reform as ineffectual.  Many in Congress who voted for socialism for the rich now look like they will be voted out for continuing those giveaways.  Now the only way those Banksters can survive is to pretend that their corporate communism is working even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Most recently, they decided that instead of taxing complicit financial institutions the cost of their "Financial Reform-In-Name-Only", they will instead use what I call the Big Tarp Lie to pander for the vote of Senator Scott Brown and others. The mainstream media rarely fights back against this lie, either by an inability to understand, a desire to protect their access to these same Politicians and Bankers or an unwillingness to go up against the very same financial institutions that are often the only thing between them and the unemployment line. However, we the people have to fight back against these lies - and thankfully we own the truth. This lie must be beaten back by all of us like whack-a-mole every time it rears its ugly head.  Please help me by sending this information to any Politician, Media Figure, Banker, Neighbor or Robot that you find repeating it - they can take our money, but they don't own the truth.  Let's break it down: 1.  TARP itself hasn't even made money.  AIG alone still owes us $75.6 billion.  However, they always add the caveat "Other than AIG..." when they say that the bailouts were "profitable".  But the AIG money was DIRECTLY PAID to many of these same banks that "paid back their TARP" at an outrageous 100 cents on the dollar!  Mind you, this was done by government officials that were the former employees and current shareholders of the very banks they were helping.  Let's make the banks like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Societe Generale pay back the $105 billion of stolen taxpayer money before we let anyone say "TARP was paid back." 2.   TARP is a tiny little part of a massive amount of taxpayer support.  TARP is actually less than 10% of your tax dollars that have been handed to the banks.  And now the banks "paid back" the tiny slice that is TARP with OUR money and you are supposed cheer them for savvy.  At this very moment, the taxpayer is still owed $2.02 Trillion dollars for the bailout by our Politicians and Banksters, and that number is growing every day.  Never mind the money that these same banks make getting endless 0% interest loans from the Federal Reserve (aka You) while either they lend it back to you at 14% or just lend it right to back the government and pocket the yield.  Never mind the multitude of benefits they get from being Too Big Too Fail.  But you're not supposed to pay attention to that; you're only supposed to notice how fast they paid back TARP! So instead of these Politicians looking for the only obvious place to find the money - clawbacks from the people who continue to steal it - we are now being subjected to outright lies as they once again pick the banksters over the people who voted them in.  But don't let them, or anyone in the media, get away with it without hearing from you.

HAVING READ THE ABOVE

JPMorgan quarterly profits soar 76%

JP Morgan Blows Out Earnings, US Futures Tear Higher  BI

RATING AGENCIES