Global markets affected by failing Greece

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USDEUR0.57CHF-0.06 GBP-0.11 JPY-1.80 The EURJPY climbed as much as 3%, the most since Feb. 24, 2009, and traded at 117.79; cutting by half its decline yesterday to 110.70, the weakest since December 2001, on prospects central banks and governments will stem contagion from Greece?s debt crisis. The JPY dropped versus all counterparts after the BOJ said it will pump 2 trillion JPY ($21.8 billion) into the banking system and the…Read More …

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Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, there's a hung Parliament in Great Britain. The Conservatives didn't wrack up enough seats and the Liberal Democrats finished a distant third. Apparently, the incumbent Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, gets the first crack at trying to establish a new government. And, that's not going well. I heard Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, on NPR this morning making noises about teaming up with the Conservatives.

The Senate is still debating S.3217, Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. Expect votes on more amendments today. Yesterday, a GOP amendment to weaken the consumer protection aspects of the bill was defeated 38 - 61. Two GOPers, Collins and Grassley, voted with the Democrats. The amendment was offered by Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee. He recently told a gathering of bankers that the best way to kill reform was to elect more GOPers -- and he told them all to give $10,000 to Rep. Roy Blunt who is running for Senate in Missouri. The Republicans are not even subtle about being bought and paid for by the bankers and Wall Street.

And, how about that wild movement of the stock market yesterday? That situation in Greece isn't inspiring investors.

Let's get it started....

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Charles Ives plays...

Charles Ives [...]

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UK 'wakes up to hung Parliament'.

As expected, Britain wakes up without a newly elected Prime Minister, and it may be a few days before we find out whether Brown will leave Downing Street to make way for Cameron.

As the Tories prepared to claim victory, Labour made clear it would try to hang on to power by forging a partnership deal with the Liberal Democrats. Downing Street sources said Gordon Brown would try to form a coalition government, arguing that the sitting government has the first right to form an administration even if it is not the biggest party.

After retaining his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat, Mr Brown said: ?My duty to the country coming out of this election is to play my part in Britain having a strong, stable and principled government, able to lead Britain into sustained economic recovery and able to implement our commitments to far-reaching reform to the political system upon which there is a growing consensus in our country.?

Cameron, inevitably, is arguing that Labour have lost the right to govern.

?I believe it is already clear that the Labour Government has lost its mandate to govern the country? What is clear from these results is that our country wants change. That change is going to require new leadership.? He promised to provide ?strong, stable, decisive and good government?.

It is also true that Cameron has not done enough to convince the British electorate that he is the man who should lead us for the next five years.

But the fact remains that, for the moment, Gordon Brown is still our Prime Minister.

It remains a fact, despite what Cameron's friends in the media will claim, that he has not done enough to win a clear majority of the voters over to his cause.

It's the best result we could have hoped for. We will probably end up with a Conservative government, but not with one which can claim it has a mandate from the British public.

As I always expected, despite the unpopularity of Brown's government, Cameron simply failed to seal the deal with the British electorate. He has no-one to blame other than himself. He ran a dreadful campaign, where he sought to hide what he intends to do and hoped to be elected simply on the grounds that he was not Gordon Brown.

His plan has utterly failed. He will probably still, eventually, limp over the finishing line; but the truth is that there is no conservative mandate from the British public.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Brown, Cameron, Clegg, UK election 2010

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Impending Non-Farm Report Could Lead to More EUR
Losses

Impending Non-Farm Report Could Lead to More EUR LossesWith the Euro already recording fresh 14-month lows against the U.S. Dollar on Thursday, the single currency may see a significantly larger price drop following the U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls report. Set to be released at 12:30 GMT, the report is forecasted to show an increase in the American employment figure. This will likely weigh heavily on the Euro.Economic NewsUSD – Non-Farm Payrolls Could Lead to Big Gains for the GreenbackWhile the Dollar was able to capitalize on the turmoil in Greece and make huge gains on the Euro, it tumbled against the Japanese Yen in trading yesterday. In the last 24 hours, USD/JPY has fallen over 200 pips, and the pair is currently trading around 91.75. Analysts largely…

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Wall Street Banksters Getting There Money's Worth
From "Conservatives"

When I woke up yesterday some talking head on CNN was babbling about how even Hank Paulson supports re-regulating Wall Street-- just not too much. And, basically, that's a good summation of the conservative (bipartisan) plan-- enough superficial regulation to give the press something to kvell over while not doing anything to upset the applecart-- the applecart being in this case the $1.3 BILLION the financial sector has paid off congressmembers since 1990. Their share of the big rip-off put $740,282,488 into the career trajectories of Republicans and $630,425,940 to work for the Democrats (overwhelmingly conservative Democrats who work with the Republicans to make sure the banksters have all the leeway they need to rip off the public-- you know, "Democrats" like Joe Lieberman ($10,084,996), Arlen Specter ($6,406,258), Max Baucus ($4,790,487), Evan Bayh ($4,393,347), Ben Nelson ($2,844,056), Mary Landrieu ($2,500,584) and, of course, Blanche Lincoln ($2,447,809).

At 3 in the afternoon there was a nearly party-line vote-- Republicans Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley (who had just gotten word he could very well lose his Senate seat in November) and Ben Nelson voting with the Democrats-- to derail the Republican proposal to limit financial reform. The amendment, proposed by Richard Shelby and Miss McConnell, was meant to render the new consumer protection agency powerless.

For nearly a year, the two parties have wrestled over the appropriate role for a new consumer watchdog, and Thursday afternoon's vote underscored how the issue remains the most divisive, partisan element in the broader debate over how to revamp financial regulations. Even President Obama weighed in to excoriate Republicans for trying to "gut consumer protections" and vowed that he would "not allow amendments like this one written by Wall Street's lobbyists to pass for reform."

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress have pushed for a powerful new consumer financial protection agency that would guard against predatory and abusive practices in mortgages, credit cards and other such products. The House approved a stand-alone new agency in December without a single GOP vote.

Republicans, along with a bevy of business and banking interests, have remained adamant in their opposition to the new agency, insisting that it would represent a vast government overreach. They argue that it would burden smaller companies with additional regulation, increase consumer costs and stifle financial innovation. Democrats have countered that numerous regulators charged with looking out for consumer interests failed in that duty during the lead up to the financial crisis.

Dodd's bill would create an independent consumer protection bureau, housed within the Federal Reserve, which could write and enforce rules protecting borrowers from abuse by lenders. The proposed location of the watchdog is a nod to Republicans and conservative Democrats who had opposed a stand-alone new agency. But Dodd's legislation maintains the proposed watchdog's autonomy. It would have a dedicated budget and an independent leader appointed by the president. A council of other regulators could veto rules put forward by the new agency, but only by a two-thirds vote.

The Republican alternative would have created a consumer protection division within the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Any rules it created would have to win approval by the agency's board of directors. The proposal also would have kept in place the doctrine of preemption, which has allowed big banks to answer solely to federal regulators.

...Democrats and the Obama administration dismissed the GOP alternative as an attempt to protect the interests of the financial industry. Obama, Dodd and other Democrats called the Republican proposals "worse than the status quo."

"I will not allow amendments like this one written by Wall Street's lobbyists to pass for reform," Obama said in a statement. "This amendment will significantly weaken consumer protection oversight, includes dangerous carve outs for payday lenders, debt collectors, and other financial services operations, and hurts the ability of community and local banks to compete by creating an unlevel playing field with their non-bank competitors."

Sounds good? No-- sounds better than what the corrupt conservatives want to do but not a lot better. Listen to how Russ Feingold put it today when he threatened to vote against the final package if it's as tarted up with Wall Street lobbyists' tricks as it is now. He's insisting on ending "too big to fail" and on restoring the Glass-Steagall protections, ?We simply cannot afford to continue down the path policymakers have set over the last thirty years. The test for this legislation is a simple one - whether or not it will prevent another financial crisis.? He's cosponsoring an amendment filed by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to require large financial institutions that are already too big to fail, and pose a major threat to the financial system, to divest until they are no longer a threat. Last night Feingold was one of 36 senators to vote for Sherrod Brown's and Ted Kaufman's amendment that would have limited the size of institutions to prevent them from becoming ?too big to fail.? 61 senators, from both sides of the aisle kept faith with the banksters and voted it down-- virtually all the Republicans (except Shelby, Ensign and Coburn) plus most of the egregiously corrupt Democrats, from Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landreiu, Tom Carper and Tim Johnson to Mark Warner, Chuck Schumer, both the slimy Nelsons and Robert Menendez. Along the same lines, the single most corrupt member of the Senate, John McCain, was caught stuffing Chamber of Commerce cash up his ass while promising to oppose everything they want him to oppose.

Today, while the Senate continued to debate Wall Street reform, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) ventured south of the Capitol to a fundraiser hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Years ago, when McCain still considered himself a ?maverick,? McCain and the Chamber clashed bitterly as McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and pushed for campaign finance reform to rein in corporate power over elections.

ThinkProgress approached McCain as he walked to the fundraiser from his car. Asked if he supports new campaign finance reforms, McCain said no, and said that Rep. Chris Van Hollen?s (D-MD) bill does not include disclosure requirements for unions. In fact, the DISCLOSE Act would force ads funded by unions to reveal the same information as ads funded by corporations. Asked why he was attending a fundraiser hosted by the organization that helped kill his own campaign finance reforms, McCain flashed ThinkProgress a thumbs up and yelled that he ?love[s] the Chamber of Commerce."

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Wall Street Banksters Getting Their Money's Worth
From "Conservatives"

When I woke up yesterday some talking head on CNN was babbling about how even Hank Paulson supports re-regulating Wall Street-- just not too much. And, basically, that's a good summation of the conservative (bipartisan) plan-- enough superficial regulation to give the press something to kvell over while not doing anything to upset the applecart-- the applecart being in this case the $1.3 BILLION the financial sector has paid off congressmembers since 1990. Their share of the big rip-off put $740,282,488 into the career trajectories of Republicans and $630,425,940 to work for the Democrats, overwhelmingly conservative Democrats who work with the Republicans to make sure the banksters have all the leeway they need to rip off the public-- you know, "Democrats" like Joe Lieberman ($10,084,996), Arlen Specter ($6,406,258), Max Baucus ($4,790,487), Evan Bayh ($4,393,347), Ben Nelson ($2,844,056), Mary Landrieu ($2,500,584) and, of course, Blanche Lincoln ($2,447,809).

At 3 in the afternoon there was a nearly party-line vote-- Republicans Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley (who had just gotten word he could very well lose his Senate seat in November) and Ben Nelson voting with the Democrats-- to derail the Republican proposal to limit financial reform. The amendment, proposed by Richard Shelby and Miss McConnell, was meant to render the new consumer protection agency powerless.

For nearly a year, the two parties have wrestled over the appropriate role for a new consumer watchdog, and Thursday afternoon's vote underscored how the issue remains the most divisive, partisan element in the broader debate over how to revamp financial regulations. Even President Obama weighed in to excoriate Republicans for trying to "gut consumer protections" and vowed that he would "not allow amendments like this one written by Wall Street's lobbyists to pass for reform."

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress have pushed for a powerful new consumer financial protection agency that would guard against predatory and abusive practices in mortgages, credit cards and other such products. The House approved a stand-alone new agency in December without a single GOP vote.

Republicans, along with a bevy of business and banking interests, have remained adamant in their opposition to the new agency, insisting that it would represent a vast government overreach. They argue that it would burden smaller companies with additional regulation, increase consumer costs and stifle financial innovation. Democrats have countered that numerous regulators charged with looking out for consumer interests failed in that duty during the lead up to the financial crisis.

Dodd's bill would create an independent consumer protection bureau, housed within the Federal Reserve, which could write and enforce rules protecting borrowers from abuse by lenders. The proposed location of the watchdog is a nod to Republicans and conservative Democrats who had opposed a stand-alone new agency. But Dodd's legislation maintains the proposed watchdog's autonomy. It would have a dedicated budget and an independent leader appointed by the president. A council of other regulators could veto rules put forward by the new agency, but only by a two-thirds vote.

The Republican alternative would have created a consumer protection division within the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Any rules it created would have to win approval by the agency's board of directors. The proposal also would have kept in place the doctrine of preemption, which has allowed big banks to answer solely to federal regulators.

...Democrats and the Obama administration dismissed the GOP alternative as an attempt to protect the interests of the financial industry. Obama, Dodd and other Democrats called the Republican proposals "worse than the status quo."

"I will not allow amendments like this one written by Wall Street's lobbyists to pass for reform," Obama said in a statement. "This amendment will significantly weaken consumer protection oversight, includes dangerous carve outs for payday lenders, debt collectors, and other financial services operations, and hurts the ability of community and local banks to compete by creating an unlevel playing field with their non-bank competitors."

Sounds good? No-- sounds better than what the corrupt conservatives want to do but not a lot better. Listen to how Russ Feingold put it today when he threatened to vote against the final package if it's as tarted up with Wall Street lobbyists' tricks as it is now. He's insisting on ending "too big to fail" and on restoring the Glass-Steagall protections, ?We simply cannot afford to continue down the path policymakers have set over the last thirty years. The test for this legislation is a simple one - whether or not it will prevent another financial crisis.? He's cosponsoring an amendment filed by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to require large financial institutions that are already too big to fail, and pose a major threat to the financial system, to divest until they are no longer a threat. Last night Feingold was one of 36 senators to vote for Sherrod Brown's and Ted Kaufman's amendment that would have limited the size of institutions to prevent them from becoming ?too big to fail.? 61 senators, from both sides of the aisle kept faith with the banksters and voted it down-- virtually all the Republicans (except Shelby, Ensign and Coburn) plus most of the egregiously corrupt Democrats, from Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Tom Carper and Tim Johnson to Mark Warner, Chuck Schumer, both the slimy Nelsons and Robert Menendez. Along the same lines, the single most corrupt member of the Senate, John McCain, was caught stuffing Chamber of Commerce cash up his ass while promising to oppose everything they want him to oppose.

Today, while the Senate continued to debate Wall Street reform, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) ventured south of the Capitol to a fundraiser hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Years ago, when McCain still considered himself a ?maverick,? McCain and the Chamber clashed bitterly as McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and pushed for campaign finance reform to rein in corporate power over elections.

ThinkProgress approached McCain as he walked to the fundraiser from his car. Asked if he supports new campaign finance reforms, McCain said no, and said that Rep. Chris Van Hollen?s (D-MD) bill does not include disclosure requirements for unions. In fact, the DISCLOSE Act would force ads funded by unions to reveal the same information as ads funded by corporations. Asked why he was attending a fundraiser hosted by the organization that helped kill his own campaign finance reforms, McCain flashed ThinkProgress a thumbs up and yelled that he ?love[s] the Chamber of Commerce."

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Tonights Grab Bag

I have just a few items that like to talk about:53 hours. It was 53 hours from a homeless veteran[...]

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Green Diary Rescue & Open Thread: 5% Solution

A Siegel has been the most prolific and focused Daily Kos energy bloggers, signing on to the Energize America 2020 project in its infancy in 2005 and rarely letting up since. This week his diary on the Five Percent Solution didn't get as many eyeballs as it deserved, so here are some excerpts for tonight's discussion:

The Five Percent Solution [offers] a path toward energy security, economic prosperity, and  climate change mitigation. ....
The Five Percent Solution calls on the United States to embrace quite achievable and straightforward objectives for each and every year ...:  Cut oil use five percent. Cut coal-fired electricity by five percent of 2010 levels." ...

Very simply

Via the 5% solution, by 2030 the United States will:
• End, 100%, oil imports.
• End, 100%, the burning of coal  for electricity
• Reduce climate emissions by 65+ percent from 1990 levels
• Improve the US trade balance by [5% of GDP] due to eliminating oil imports)
• Cut health care impacts from fossil fuel use by 50%
• Improve productivity, per decade, by at least 5% above 'business as usual'
• Cut employment below 5% by 2015 and maintain unemployment levels below 5% through 2030.

The Green Diary Rescue, which appears Sundays and Thursdays, begins below and continues in the jump.

DocGonzo suggested a way to do some of the cleanup in the Gulf with another benefit: Jobs in Massive Cleanup/Construction Operations: "500,000 jobs on the Gulf Coast at $75,000 annual average salary is $3.75 billion a year. BP just made over $6B profits in just the first quarter of 2010. Goldman Sachs reported $3.3B profits in 2010 Q1; over $13B profits last year. And those two corps are just the most undeniably liable money pots - their whole industries are packed with liabilities and $billions to pay them. A 5 year programme costing $19B labor + $10B materials to repair the Gulf Coast, including rebuilding wetlands and proper levees, and housing and rail transit, would fix unemployment, the infrastructure and ecology, and serve justice."

In an installment of the Eco-Justice series, rb137 wrote about Silence in the Democratic Republic of Congo: "HEAL Africa began as a small clinic, but it was destroyed when Mount Nyiragongo erupted in 2002. They've since rebuilt, and are now a teaching hospital with a state of the art surgical center, specializing in traumatic gynecologic fistulae. These injuries commonly result from the brutal rapes that happen because of the war. Women are attacked and raped sometimes by groups of twenty or more men. These men penetrate them with weapons and sometimes shoot, burn, or mutilate and then leave them for dead. HEAL Africa's hospital was designed to treat their wounds."

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What Jesus Said About Homosexuality

Another priceless nugget from the blog of Yellowdog Granny.

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