Samsung looks to topple Sonos with launch of $399.99 Shape M7 wireless speaker | The Verge
We have the Sonos system and I don’t see this as a successful competitor.
“Twitter’s accumulated deficit to date is $418.6 million, a figure that will race to $748.2 million once it goes public and realizes $329.6 million in costs related to stock-based compensation expenses.”
U.S. Views of Gov’t Regulation Still Politically Polarized
The Republican view has shifted mainly due to Obama’s being in the White House. Look at the time series. This is pure party affiliation politics.
“The gulf between Republicans’ and Democrats’ views of government regulation of business has widened dramatically since 2007. Currently, almost three-quarters of Republicans say there is too much regulation, compared with one-quarter of Democrats.”
Spain: Seeds of recovery – FT.com
“The country is emerging from the recession but critics claim confidence is both premature and dangerous.
Exports, which accounted for 20 per cent of GDP before the crisis, now make up almost 35 per cent of national output. What is more, Spanish exports are moving steadily up the value chain – sales of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and machinery are up – and heading increasingly to fast-growing countries outside the eurozone.”
Portugal EU/IMF creditors approve bailout review, goals unaltered | Reuters
This is not the same treatment that France, Spain and Italy are getting.
“Portugal’s international lenders approved the country’s performance under a bailout in their latest review on Thursday, but rejected government requests to ease fiscal goals.”
Why we won’t mint the coin, why we can’t just pay off bonds, and other scary debt-ceiling facts
“Mark A. Patterson is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He was chief of staff at the Treasury Department from 2009 until May 2013 where he was deeply involved in the 2011 debt-ceiling negotiations. We spoke this morning, and a lightly-edited transcript of our conversation follows.”
Mexico’s Grupo Elektra to Exit Argentina – WSJ.com
Another reason to look askance at Argentina in my view
“closing its stores and leaving Argentina after six years in the country, citing the challenges of exchange controls and trade restrictions imposed by the government, along with high inflation.”
U.S. Government Shutdown Threatening Housing Recovery – Bloomberg
“Congress forced the first partial government closure in 17 years after failing to pass a budget, meaning borrowers in the process of obtaining home loans could be delayed as lenders are blocked from verifying Social Security numbers and accessing Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts.
The process may also lengthen the wait for borrowers seeking approval for mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration because its fulltime staff is now less than a tenth of its normal size and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which backs mortgages in rural areas, won’t take on new business during the shutdown. “
Treasury Yields Near Seven-Week Low – WSJ.com
“The yield had drifted as low as 2.594% during the session, the lowest level since Aug. 12. The 30-year Treasury bond rose 8/32 to yield 3.707%. Bond prices move inversely to their yields. “
China official services PMI hits six-month high, supported third-quarter pickup | Reuters
“The official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector rose to 55.4 in September – the highest reading since March – from 53.9 in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday.”
ekathimerini.com | Greek unemployment rate to reach 34 pct by 2016, study finds
“Greece’s unemployment rate will rise to 34 percent by 2016 according to a study by GSEE’s Labor Institute published Thursday.
According to the same report, about 1 million jobs have been lost in Greece since October 2008.
Meanwhile, the 27.4 percent jobless rate posted in March by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) was the highest percentage to be recorded by a western country in the past 30 years, the study found.”
House prices rising at quickest rate in three years – Halifax | Money | theguardian.com
“Eight consecutive monthly rise brings annual growth above 6%”
Lavabit got order for Snowden’s login info, then gov’t demanded site’s SSL key | Ars Technica
“The American government obtained a secret order from a federal judge in Virginia demanding that Lavabit hand over its private SSL key, enabling authorities to access Edward Snowden’s e-mail—and e-mail belonging to Lavabit’s 400,000 other users as well. That sealed order, dated July 10 2013, was first published on Wednesday by Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen.”
How the feds took down the Dread Pirate Roberts | Ars Technica
Ludwig von Mises in the role of Walter White | FT Alphaville
“It is because taxes must eventually be settled in the currency of the realm that a preference for the national currency is developed, as opposed to say Bitcoin,or a foreign currency for that matter.
If Bitcoin has value, thus, it’s in its ability to dodge taxes and its antisocial nature. Hence its natural orientation to the criminal economy.”
Europe’s Responsible Solidarity by Enrico Letta – Project Syndicate
Merekl has to form a government coalition with a left wing party in Germany. I believe she will be open to this idea of targeted fiscal stimulus incentives in conjunction with backloaded austerity and structural reform. I think this is where Europe is now headed
“if we are serious about the need to support structural reform in member states, greater surveillance and policy coordination must be matched by a system of limited and targeted financial incentives. These incentives can expand the range of options for governments struggling with fiscal consolidation and provide a signal to the European public that the EU is a partner supporting their countries’ reform efforts. “
U.S. administration: default ‘catastrophic’, can’t prioritize debt payments | Reuters
“The Obama administration said the U.S. economy could fall into its deepest crisis since the Great Depression if Congress does not raise a cap on government borrowing soon and warned it would be impossible to prioritize debt payments over other obligations.”
Obama Tea Party 14th Amendment Debt Ceiling Manuever – Joseph Jett
“Obama has no choice but to invoke the 14th Amendment and prevent sending us into a global economic spiral as the U.S. becomes truly a third-World Banana Republic. If the debt ceiling debate is won simply by never allowing it to happen, there is a strong likelihood that the economic thaw experienced to date could blossom into spring. If Obama insists on playing politics like usual, then his lone legacy will be that he lacked the audacity to act, to cheat political and economic death by doing the unthinkable.”
“With the U.S. government deadlock heading toward a more damaging crisis and global economic growth falling far short of expectations, a hike in interest rates has been put on hold and one of the world’s most powerful investors now says he expects ultra-low rates for decades.
“Bond King” Bill Gross, the widely regarded manager of one of the world’s largest investment funds, called for interest rates to remain lower for “decades to come” in his monthly economic commentary on Wednesday.”
U.S. government shutdown: Political bungling mocked worldwide | Toronto Star
This view of America as an embarrasment politically is important because this is what is significant regarding the US’s moral authority on a wide range of international issues.
“As government shutdown lurches toward a third day, fresh embarrassment emerges as the world weighs in on the shambolic state of American democracy.”
Toronto home sales soar, prices continue climb | Financial Post
“The average sale price last month also climbed 6.5% from a year ago to $533,797. That’s also up from $503,094 from August. Over the first nine months of the year, the average selling price was $520,118, a 4% jump from 2012.”
Sinéad O’Connor’s open letter to Miley Cyrus | Music | theguardian.com
I kinda like what O’Connor has to say here
Paul: There’s no reason to raise the debt ceiling – The Hill’s Video
Rand Paul is arguing for a prioritization of payments strategy in order to keep pressure on Obama regarding government spending:
““I’m for taking default completely off the table and for promising to the American people and the markets, to Wall Street, that we will always pay the interest on the debt as a priority,” he said. “You know how we do that? We bring in $250 billion in tax revenue every month. The debt payment is about $30 billion. We just promise that we’ll always pay it. “”
The Loss of U.S. Pre-eminence – NYTimes.com
This rhymes with what I was telling you yesterday in my commentary. The US is now in decline as a superpower.
On Communication – Tim Duy’s Fed Watch
“No reason to waste much time on the October meeting. Probably true for December as well at this rate. What is still worth spending time on is diagnosing the challenges of the Fed’s communication strategy. Sooner or later, that problem will rear its ugly head again.
To help narrow the field, I am going to propose four central problems complicating the Fed’s communication strategy”
Why did Obama try to scare the markets?
“Usually political leaders don’t like to spook markets. Presumably Obama hoped to spook markets, which in turn would put pressure on Republicans sooner rather than later. The problem with waiting for “the spook” to come later is that there may not be enough time to put a deal together at the last minute, or trembling hands may make a last minute deal too risky.
But can Obama spook markets in this fashion?”
Reinhart Inflection Point Sees U.S. Ditching Torpor: Economy – Bloomberg
““The data that have come in of a forward-looking nature, importantly including purchasing managers, do suggest that the economy is picking up,” Reinhart said in an interview today. “The key mechanism that gets us that inflection point is capital spending. Firms begin to feel more confident.”
The projection, which he first issued in March, marked a change in the outlook for Reinhart. He and his wife, Harvard economist Carmen Reinhart, laid out a case for slow recoveries from deep recessions in a 2010 paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “
Sober Look: Market beginning to price in the risk of US technical default
“Just as in 2011, with the US debt ceiling date approaching, longer dated treasury yields have moved lower. What the media tends to miss however is that the short end of the curve is doing the opposite. The yield on one-month bills has increased. That’s because most investors think the technical default will result in merely a short-term delay in payments by the US Treasury. Which means that the one-month bill holders may not get their principal back on time – causing the 1m bill yields to rise. A delay in longer maturity securities is not as critical to pricing. But yields on other T-bills will also rise if the expected delay in payments extends beyond a few days.”