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To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (265234)	7/30/2010 3:24:47 PM
From: The Reaper	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

T-bonds/notes and ES both at the highs of the day. Who to believe?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (265234)	7/30/2010 3:43:13 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 306849

State tells employees health insurance will rocket 37 percent premium increases for policies with dependent children The Department of Administration cited federal health reform as the reason the state's health plans will carry "greater expenses and higher premiums for members," according to a June 30 letter sent to about 135,000 state and university employees and their dependents. The letter named two provisions that the state expects will drive health-insurance costs higher. One is a requirement that insurance plans provide coverage for dependent children up to age 26. The other is the federal legislation's ban on lifetime limits, an insurance-industry practice that cuts coverage once an individual's medical expenses exceed a set amount over their lifetime. azcentral.com I could see families with healthy 'children' dodging this requirement and paying the nominal penalty. Insurers seem to be expecting the likelihood that the system is going to be gamed by the chronically ill.

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (265234)	7/30/2010 4:58:04 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

WTH is going on here? Agency weighs skirting Congress on immigration news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON – The Obama administration, unable to push an immigration overhaul through Congress, is considering ways it could go around lawmakers to allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States, according to an agency memo. The internal draft written by officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services outlines ways that the government could provide "relief" to illegal immigrants — including delaying deportation for some, perhaps indefinitely, or granting green cards to others — in the absence of legislation revamping the system. It's emerging as chances fade in this election year for a measure President Barack Obama favors to put the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants on a path to legal status, and as debate rages over an Arizona law targeting people suspected of being in the country illegally. The 11-page internal memo, written in April to the agency's director, says: "This memorandum offers administrative relief options to promote family unity, foster economic growth, achieve significant process improvements and reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization." It goes on: "In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, USCIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals or groups." The memo provoked a backlash by Republicans who called it evidence that Obama is looking for ways of relaxing immigration policies without political consensus to enact a new law. "The document provides an additional basis for our concerns that the administration will go to great lengths to circumvent Congress and unilaterally execute a backdoor amnesty plan," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who obtained and circulated the memo. "The problem remains that if you reward illegality, you get more of it." Grassley led a group of conservative GOP senators who wrote to Obama in June asking him to promise that the administration wouldn't use its authority to "change the current position of a large group of illegal aliens already in the United States." The Iowan's staff said the group has not received a response. "Now we find out the truth: while saying one thing to the public, the Obama administration is scheming to ensure that immigration laws are not enforced," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for the agency, said the internal document "should not be equated with official action or policy," and represented only "deliberation and exchange of ideas." "We continue to maintain that comprehensive bipartisan legislation, coupled with smart, effective enforcement, is the only solution to our nation's immigration challenges," he said in a statement. Still, the memo makes clear that even without such a bill, immigration officials have identified a variety of ways to relax U.S. policy to allow more undocumented immigrants who might otherwise face deportation to stay in the country. Among the options outlined is expanding the use of "deferred action" — in which the government can use its discretion to halt a deportation indefinitely, usually for an urgent humanitarian reason. "While it is theoretically possible to grant deferred action to an unrestricted number of unlawfully present individuals, doing so would likely be controversial, not to mention expensive," the memo says. Instead, officials suggest using the option for certain groups, such as tens of thousands of high school graduates who have been brought up in the U.S. and plan to attend college or serve in the armed forces. Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly tried to push through legislation — known as the "Dream Act" — to cover those students. "To be clear," Bentley said, the government "will not grant deferred action or humanitarian parole to the nation's entire illegal immigrant population." Another option included in the document is to allow more illegal immigrants to receive "parole-in-place" status. This would let them stay in the United States while they seek legal status. The document discusses applying both those options to spouses of active duty military personnel, for instance. It also suggests expanding the definition of "extreme hardship" for exceptions in immigration cases — a prospect that alarmed critics who said it could lower the bar so virtually any undocumented person could meet it. And the memo suggests allowing people who entered the United States illegally and were granted so-called "Temporary Protected Status" because of a crisis in their home countries to stay and get permanent legal residency. The memo notes that this would be a change in long-standing policy, and says, "Opening this pathway will help thousands of applicants obtain lawful permanent residence without having to leave the U.S." Some proponents of revamping the immigration system said the document simply points out ways the agency can fix old and outdated practices that separate families and hurt workers and employers. Writing on the Immigration Policy Center's blog, Director Mary Giovagnoli, a former immigration official, said, "Good for you, USCIS, for trying to do what it can within that broken system."

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (265234)	7/30/2010 9:17:57 PM
From: DebtBomb	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Got Dow 1000? Got high voltage fences and barbed wire and equipped with booby traps and an arsenal of machine guns, hand grenades and armed vehicles guarded by vicious Dobermans? Marc Faber Questions if Dow Could Hit 1,000 On Friday July 30, 2010, 4:42 pm EDT In the August edition of the 'The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report' Marc Faber questions whether the Dow could hit 1,000 as predicted by Robert Prechter, based on his interpretation of Elliot Waves, Fibonacci numbers and socioeconomic trends. Prechter, who has written 13 books on finance, believes that the stock market is historically overvalued in terms of dividends and earnings, because of a "great rise in positive social mood." But the mood changed in 2000 and the "trend toward negative social mood will lead to an economic contraction," according to Prechter. "Small bear markets lead to recessions, big bear markets lead to depressions. The current bear market will be the biggest in nearly 300 years, so the depression will be correspondingly deep," Prechter said. Prechter goes onto to suggest the bear market is of super-cycle degree, the biggest since 1720-1784 and will therefore see a decline for equities deeper than the decline during the great depression, which saw the Dow fall 89 percent. "The trend toward negative social mood that has been in progress since 2000 and which is about to accelerate will continue to curtail lending and lead to a tidal wave of defaults and a terrific deflation," he said. "The amount of outstanding credit today is so large that system-wide defaults could lead to as much as an 80 percent -90 percent decline in the volume of dollar-denominated credits worldwide," according to Precther. "In such an environment, surviving dollars and dollar credits, representing the denominator of the DJIA, will rise in value, and the Dow -along with everything else not used as money - will fall in dollar price," he added. Faber's Response Marc Faber says before dismissing Prechter as a lunatic you should look at his record. In 1978 when he predicted the Dow would reach 2,300 in his book Elliot Wave Principle no one believed it possible. "Prechter is right when says that when manias come to an end, prices tend to retreat to where the mania started. So from this point of view, a Dow Jones at 1,000 should not be excluded," Faber said. Faber also sympathizes with Prechter's view that there will one day be a complete credit collapse. Where he differs from Prechter is on that crucial factor, timing. "It is likely that if the Dow where to fall by more than 20 percent from the present level there would be further massive fiscal and monetary stimulus packages - not just in the US but worldwide," Faber said. "These economic policy measures would likely fail to boost economic activity in the US but could support asset markets," he added. Faber's biggest problem with Prechter's theory is his view that surviving "dollars and dollar credits, representing the denominator of the DJIA, will rise in value, and the Dow - along with everything else used as money - will fall in dollar price." "The question here is really, with the Dow below 1,000, what kind of dollars - and especially what kind of dollar credits - will survive," Faber said. "It is safe to assume that almost all banks in the world, and almost all governments, will be bust." "I want my readers to think very carefully about the implications of a Dow below 1,000 (or even just below 5,000). Does anyone really think that the money printing presses won't run 24 hours a day? For sure I don't," he wrote in his August report. And how do you trade the Dow at 1,000? One suggestion from Faber is buying a self-sustainable farm in the middle of nowhere surrounded by high voltage fences and barbed wire and equipped with booby traps and an arsenal of machine guns, hand grenades and armed vehicles guarded by vicious Dobermans. finance.yahoo.com