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Space Suttle Lost. I pray for the astronauts safe return.
Party's over, says pioneer analyst
Lowry's Desmond sees intense selling round the corner
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BAF6F9627%2D28D1%2D41BF%2D8109%2D6AB60DF79105%7D&am...
Bush Proposes Overhaul Of Retirement Accounts
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE News Roundup
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration proposed sweeping changes Friday in tax-advantaged retirement-savings accounts, such as greatly expanding the traditional Roth IRA, eliminating income caps and boosting contribution limits.
The White House is proposing to create two new tax-deferred savings accounts that don't offer tax deductions for contributions, but will allow the funds to grow tax-free and be withdrawn without taxes.
The changes, which require congressional approval, would mean more people would effectively forgo their upfront deductions and pay more in tax in the short run, analysts have said. The government would thus collect more tax upfront, but potentially much less in the years to come -- say, 10 to 20 years from now -- on the appreciated savings.
President Bush's fiscal year 2004 budget will contain a plan to create "lifetime-savings accounts," which can be used for any type of savings, and "retirement-savings accounts," from which money can be withdrawn after a taxpayer reaches the age of 58. People can withdraw money tax-free at any time from the lifetime-savings accounts. Taxpayers will be able to convert existing IRAs into these new accounts.
"No longer will individuals have to worry about the confusing alphabet soup of six different savings accounts," Pam Olson, assistant Treasury Secretary for tax policy, said in a prepared statement.
"The two simple accounts will have one powerful goal -- making saving for everyday life and retirement security easier and more attractive," she said.
Taxpayers can contribute up to $7,500 to each account, for a maximum of $15,000 a year. The $7,500 limit will be indexed for inflation.
The proposed new retirement account has no income limit, unlike the current Roth accounts, which are restricted to married couples with incomes up to $160,000 and singles with up to $110,000. Taxpayers won't get a tax deduction for contributing to either the lifetime-savings or retirement-savings accounts.
The $7,500 contribution limit for the new accounts is higher than the current cap of $3,000 for a Roth IRA or $3,500 for people age 50 and older.
The lifetime-savings accounts are designed to simplify the current tax-deferred savings arrangements. Taxpayers won't need to anticipate future qualified expenses and allocate savings among tax-preferred accounts, unlike the current education-savings and medical-savings accounts, the Treasury Department said.
"Taxpayers won't be required to document qualified expenses, financial institutions will not need to explain complicated rules to participants and the government will not need to verify the qualifying expenses," the Treasury said.
In addition, the Bush administration is weighing consolidation of a range of plans, such as 401(k)s, that have complex and varying provisions. It also is considering changes to pension rules to encourage more companies to offer them. Among other things, the changes could ease so-called top-heavy rules that limit the amounts executives can give themselves. That could encourage more company owners to undertake the expense of setting up plans.
After his wife gets through with him he want have any money left.
He is a real winner I can tell. ROFLMAO!!! I hope JD finds another thread and fast.
US Dollar over 100 on run. Some roller coaster for something that is suppose to be steady eddy.
Bush approves nuclear response
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030131-27320419.htm
A classified document signed by President Bush specifically allows for the use of nuclear weapons in response to biological or chemical attacks, apparently changing a decades-old U.S. policy of deliberate ambiguity, it was learned by The Washington Times. Top Stories
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"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including potentially nuclear weapons — to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies," the document, National Security Presidential Directive 17, set out on Sept. 14 last year.
A similar statement is included in the public version of the directive, which was released Dec. 11 as the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction and closely parallels the classified document. However, instead of the phrase "including potentially nuclear weapons," the public text says, "including through resort to all of our options."
A White House spokesman declined to comment when asked about the document last night and neither confirmed nor denied its existence.
A senior administration official said, however, that using the words "nuclear weapons" in the classified text gives the military and other officials, who are the document's intended audience, "a little more of an instruction to prepare all sorts of options for the president," if need be.
The official, nonetheless, insisted that ambiguity remains "the heart and soul of our nuclear policy."
In the classified version, nuclear forces are designated as the main part of any U.S. deterrent, and conventional capabilities "complement" the nuclear weapons.
"Nuclear forces alone ... cannot ensure deterrence against [weapons of mass destruction] and missiles," the original paragraph says. "Complementing nuclear force with an appropriate mix of conventional response and defense capabilities, coupled with effective intelligence, surveillance, interdiction and domestic law-enforcement capabilities, reinforces our overall deterrent posture against [weapons of mass destruction] threats."
Before it released the text publicly, the White House changed that same paragraph to: "In addition to our conventional and nuclear response and defense capabilities, our overall deterrent posture against [weapons of mass destruction] threats is reinforced by effective intelligence, surveillance, interdiction and domestic law-enforcement capabilities."
The classified document, a copy of which was shown to The Washington Times, is known better by its abbreviation NSPD 17, as well as Homeland Security Presidential Directive 4.
The disclosure of the classified text follows newspaper reports that the planning for a war with Iraq focuses on using nuclear arms not only to defend U.S. forces but also to "pre-empt" deeply buried Iraqi facilities that could withstand conventional explosives.
For decades, the U.S. government has maintained a deliberately vague nuclear policy, expressed in such language as "all options open" and "not ruling anything in or out." As recently as last weekend, Bush administration officials used similar statements in public, consciously avoiding the word "nuclear."
"I'm not going to put anything on the table or off the table," White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding that the United States will use "whatever means necessary" to protect its citizens and the world from a "holocaust."
But in the paragraphs marked "S" for "secret," the Sept. 14 directive clearly states that nuclear weapons are part of the "overwhelming force" that Washington might use in response to a chemical or biological attack.
Former U.S. officials and arms control experts with knowledge of policies of the previous administrations declined to say whether such specific language had been used before, for fear of divulging classified information. But they conceded that differences exist.
"This shows that there is a somewhat greater willingness in this administration to use a nuclear response to other [non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction] attacks, although that's not a wholesale departure from previous administrations," one former senior official said.
Even a slight change can make a big difference. Because it is now "official policy, it means that the United States will actively consider the nuclear option" in a military conflict, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
"This document is far more explicit about the use of nuclear weapons to deter and possibly defeat biological and chemical attacks," he said. "If someone dismisses it, that would question the entire logic of the administration's national security strategy against [weapons of mass destruction]."
Mr. Kimball said U.S. nuclear weapons "should only be used to deter nuclear attacks by others."
A senior official who served in the Clinton administration said there would still have to be a new evaluation before any decision was made on the use of nuclear weapons.
"What this document means is that they have thought through the consequences, including in the abstract, but it doesn't necessarily prejudge any specific case."
Baker Spring, a national security fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the classified language "does not undermine the basic posture of the deterrent and does not commit the United States to a nuclear response in hypothetical circumstances. In a classified document, you are willing to be more specific what the policy is, because people in the administration have to understand it for planning purposes."
Both former officials and arms control analysts say that making the classified text public might raise concerns among Washington's allies but has little military significance. On the other hand, they note, the nuclear deterrent has little value if a potential adversary does not know what it can expect.
They agree that there must have been "good reasons" for the White House to have "cleaned up" the document before releasing it. They speculated on at least three:
Although responding to a non-nuclear attack by nuclear weapons is not banned by international law, existing arms-control treaties call for a "proportionate response" to biological and chemical attacks. The question is, one former official said, whether any nuclear response is proportionate to any non-nuclear attack.
Second, naming nuclear weapons specifically flies in the face of the "negative security assurances" that U.S. administrations have given for 25 years. Those statements, while somewhat modified under different presidents, essentially have said the United States will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state unless that state attacks it together with a nuclear ally.
Finally, publicly and explicitly articulating a policy of nuclear response can hurt the international nonproliferation regime, which the United States firmly supports. That sets a bad example for countries such as India and Pakistan and gives rogue states an incentive to develop their own nuclear capabilities.
William M. Arkin, a military analyst, wrote in the Los Angeles Times earlier this week that the Bush administration's war planning "moves nuclear weapons out of their long-established special category and lumps them in with all the other military options."
Mr. Arkin quoted "multiple sources" close to the preparations for a war in Iraq as saying that the focus is on "two possible roles for nuclear weapons: attacking Iraqi facilities located so deep underground that they might be impervious to conventional explosives; and thwarting Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction."
He cited a Dec. 11 memorandum from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to Mr. Bush, asking for authority to place Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, in charge of the full range of "strategic" warfare options.
NSPD 17 appears to have upgraded nuclear weapons beyond the traditional function as a nuclear deterrent.
"This is an interesting distinction," Mr. Spring said. "There is an acknowledgment up front that under the post-Cold War circumstances, deterrence in the sense we applied it during the Cold War is not as reliable. I think it's accurate."
I said this the other day and still believe it. In case anyone missed it. It sure is nice to relax with no trading positions. :)
Posted by: Smart_Money
In reply to: Zeev Hed who wrote msg# 69367 Date:1/29/2003 9:33:58 AM
Post #of 70250
More UNCERTAINTY TODAY than I seen since 911.
I am been flat all day. I have no desire to trade this mess.
Tax Program Develops An Insulting Approach - TurboTax installs Spyware
The Wall Street Journal
WALTER S. MOSSBERG
The top two software packages for tax preparation have been largely static in their core features and user interfaces for years, but you'll notice a new attitude toward customers from one of the publishers this time around.
The programs are nearly identical, and in my annual reviews of H&R Block's TaxCut and TurboTax by Intuit I have mainly noted changes in ancillary features, and in the proliferation of various editions and versions that seem inspired more by marketing than by functionality.
This year, both publishers have thrown in planning features for retirees and investors, and TurboTax now comes in special editions for these groups. Still, the core tax functionality is the same in all these products.
However, Intuit, in an effort to curb piracy, now is forcing folks who buy TurboTax to jump through hoops to use it. Users must contact Intuit to "activate" the software, a process that limits full use of TurboTax to a single PC. To enforce this system, Intuit secretly installs third-party monitoring software on users' PCs.
By contrast, H&R Block is adding a "family license" to its top-of-the-line version of TaxCut, which explicitly allows the software to be shared with family members and to be used to prepare the returns of multiple people, all legally.
You can install the full-function TaxCut product on multiple PCs as long as they aren't used simultaneously. There are no activation requirements. TaxCut also costs less than TurboTax and offers free phone support, while TurboTax users pay for most such service.
So, this year I emphatically recommend H&R Block's TaxCut over Intuit's TurboTax. They both do the job of preparing any straightforward tax return. But Intuit has decided to treat all its TurboTax customers like potential criminals, and to limit the ways that even honest people can use the product. Why subject yourself to that?
For my tests, I chose the top Windows versions of both products, TurboTax Premier and TaxCut Platinum. TurboTax Premier costs $49.95 after a $10 mail-in rebate. TaxCut Platinum is just $29.95 after a $10 rebate. (Stripped-down versions can be bought for as little as $10 for TaxCut and $20 for TurboTax, after rebates.)
These software products aren't a substitute for an accountant or other tax preparer. If you have any serious legal questions about your taxes, you shouldn't rely on these programs.
I ran a simple sample tax situation through both programs and both handled it fine. Both allow you to automate some of the data entry by downloading W-2 information, which saves a few minutes of typing. TurboTax was better at this, with information from more payroll providers.
I also tested a feature where, for $19.95, you can ask a tax expert a question. I e-mailed the same question through each program. TaxCut did better. The TaxCut expert e-mailed me back within an hour with a good answer. The TurboTax adviser insisted I phone her and when I reached her, her answer seemed too simplistic. During our conversation, I was interrupted by an operator demanding more money for a longer call.
Installation of TaxCut was easy and straightforward. By contrast, installing TurboTax was a pain, due to the new antipiracy requirements. I had to type in an 18-digit product key, then activate the product over the Internet, a process that generates a hidden code that mates each copy of TurboTax to one PC. I was informed that while my copy of TurboTax would run on multiple PCs, I could print or electronically file a tax form only on the PC on which it had been activated.
The TurboTax installation process never revealed that Intuit was also installing on my PC an antipiracy product called SafeCast, from a company called Macrovision. This software includes a hidden folder called C-Dilla, the former name for SafeCast, and a hidden program that runs in the background all the time, monitoring your PC for the use of TurboTax. When TurboTax runs, the SafeCast product checks to see if the program matches the activation code on the PC. It also periodically checks to see that the code hasn't been tampered with.
I have no evidence that SafeCast damages PCs or spies on users, and Intuit and Macrovision emphatically deny rumors that SafeCast sends reports on software use back to the company over the Internet. Macrovision even denies SafeCast can be called "monitoring" software, but the term fits because the product constantly watches for TurboTax activity.
Once SafeCast is on your PC, it remains there even when you uninstall TurboTax. Intuit said it adopted this policy because users might have other programs that rely on SafeCast that would be disabled if it were removed. But after a storm of criticism, Intuit posted on the Web a program to uninstall SafeCast.
I agree with Intuit that piracy is a problem, and I condemn it. But I don't think the answer is to treat all consumers like criminals by adding restrictions and hidden software to an inexpensive product used for a week or two each year. I also believe that the licensing of software to one PC or one person, while cherished in the technology industry, makes little sense in a world where honest families have multiple PCs and users.
If you'd rather be treated with respect than suspicion, shun TurboTax and buy TaxCut.
Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com
Saudi Arabia Water Wells run dry. Hah... I think we checkmate. "Saudi Arabia may sit atop the world's largest oil reserves, but the other side of the geological coin is that the country also sits atop one of the world's smallest reserves of water. It does not have a single lake or river."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/01/28/201.html
Zeev, This is amazing. Do you think you can come up with additional uses
. http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,169122,00.html?
Docs grew eye 'patch' - from her own eye
Black mole covering cornea of girl's eye is removed using stem-cell transplant pioneered by S'pore team
By Salma Khalik
A YOUNG girl who once had a black mole covering almost the entire white of her left eye now looks just fine.
Video: Watch the STTV news clip here
Doctors took stem cells from 10-year-old Mercy Mohen's own eye, grew them in the laboratory and created a patch to repair her damaged conjunctiva, the thin surface layer of the eye.
It's all looking bright for Mercy, 10, whose left eye used to look black due to a mole (below). Doctors, who removed the mole, grew stem cells taken from her eye and used these to cover her eye's damaged layer. -- HOW HWEE YOUNG
The Singapore doctors are the first in the world to harvest the stem cells - master cells that can replicate themselves - and grow them in a laboratory for use in eye treatment.
They have filed a patent for their pioneering effort, which they had used to help Mercy, who was born with the mole.
She could see, but doctors were worried because the mole was growing into the cornea, the transparent part of the eye in front of the eyeball.
Until recently, she could not have had the her mole removed as it would have left too much of her eye raw and exposed.
Some of her schoolmates at Gan Eng Seng Primary, used to call her 'Black Eye'.
After the operation last year, Mercy kept looking at herself in the mirror, admiring her eye which now looks normal, said her father, Mr Mohen Ambrose.
The doctors who worked this miracle on her are from the Singapore Eye Research Institute (Seri).
The method sounds deceptively simple. Doctors took a tiny amount of stem cells from the conjunctiva high up under Mercy's eyelid.
In the laboratory, they grew these cells into a sheet over 100 times the size of the original bit of cells measuring about 2 sq mm.
After they removed the mole, they stitched this sheet over the exposed areas in the white of her eye.
Seri director Donald Tan, who led the team and heads the opthalmology department at the National University of Singapore, said the conjunctiva stem-cell technique has been used on 24 patients here in the past two years.
But the technique is still on clinical trials and is not yet available to everyone.
Most of the patients had fleshy growths covering their corneas, a common eye problem called pterygium.
The third most common eye problem treated here, it affects one in 10 people over the age of 40, though not all need surgery.
If the growth covers a large part of the iris, or if it is fast growing, doctors would cut off the growth and patch it up with conjunctiva from another part of the eye.
This leaves two scars on the eye.
Associate Professor Tan, said the results are optimistic, though the fleshy part re-grows in about a third of the patients on the stem-cell treatment.
It recurs in 5 to 35 per cent of patients who are not on the stem-cell treatment.
Nevertheless, this is a significant advance in the treatment of eye disease.
The team hopes to have better outcomes in the future.
They also hope to start work on growing retina from stem cells as well as bio-engineering various layers of the cornea for transplant.
The retina lies at the back of the eye and translates what the eye sees to the brain.
If they succeed, it could help a lot of people suffering from retinal diseases or damaged corneas.
The team, which hopes to publish its work in medical journals soon, will present their findings to about 600 eye specialists from 37 countries who will gather here next month for a four-day eye research meeting.
Seri and the Association for Research in Vision and Opthalmology (Arvo) are organising the Meeting on Research in Vision and Opthalmology jointly.
Arvo meetings are considered the foremost eye research gatherings in the world, say eye doctors, and had never been held outside the United States before. Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan will open the meeting which features more than 70 speakers.
Is anyone Else having problems with this Yahoo link http://finance.yahoo.com/?u It says under construction.
I am out too for .10 net
EDIT waiting for a convergence.
Double Down short RMBS more at 11.20 Will cover 11.25
I am short RMBS 11.03 Yeah BABY!
EDIT: cover stop at 11.25
Reminds me back when RMBS a few years ago when they got news and I was shorting the hell out of it 100.00
I agree with you comments. I was only implying to information traveling much faster than the past. Instead of relying on the Wall Street Journal investors rely on the internet.
You think I can tag team with Joe. We'll if he need any help I will volunteer.
My point was this... Just think of all the crookedness that was going on prior to the internet. It took days for the average investor to get a grip on news. At least the average investor has some chance to react.
More UNCERTAINTY TODAY than I seen since 911.
Joe, The only thing that has change in the Market is the average guys perception of Wall Street. At least most on this thread have caught on to there ways.
Today could really be the worst day this year. I would not go long for nothing. Matter of Fact it would be wise just to turn the puter off if you can't short. Cause it's not going to be purdy (lol). All it would take is the FEDs to downgrade the economy.
The market does not like uncertainty and after Bush comments last night it surely wont't like it now the war drums are heard across the world.
I think this link says it all about the market. Maybe we should keep it handy.
http://www.foodnews.ch/news/rezepte/images/smelly-fish.gif
Is the Bank of Japan Barreling toward a Bailout?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_05/b3818169.htm
Its spending spree could make the unthinkable a reality
Chart: Bond Binge
INTERNATIONAL -- ASIAN BUSINESS
Can Proton Deliver?
Commentary: Korea: Roh Needs to Finish the Job Kim Began
Is the Bank of Japan Barreling toward a Bailout?
How bad are things in Japan? So bad there's serious apprehension that the Bank of Japan might need a government bailout. Sure, central banks normally can't run out of money, because they own their currency's printing presses. But the BOJ is a special case. To enable the bank to play its role as lender of last resort for both Japan's central government and its rickety commercial-banking system, BOJ Governor Masaru Hayami's Policy Board reluctantly launched an enormous spending spree that could someday burn a very big hole in the bank's balance sheet.
Since 1997, the central bank's outright purchases--as opposed to repurchase agreements--of Japanese government bonds have exploded, to a cumulative total of $471 billion. To keep the money markets flush with cash, the bank now devours some $10 billion in bonds a month on the secondary market. At that rate, it'll absorb about 40% of all new Japanese government bond issuance in 2003. On top of that, it announced plans last year to buy as much as $17 billion worth of stocks from commercial banks, which need to sell off their corporate shares to raise cash.
Now the central bank is under intense pressure from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its allies in the Finance Ministry to buy more stocks, plus corporate bonds, and even real estate. Insiders worry about the huge growth in the bank's potential liabilities. Policy Board member Shin Nakahara insists: "There should be a limit to the bank's discretionary purchase of such risky assets."
The bank has already crossed a dangerous line. It has to maintain capital adequacy ratios just like other financial institutions. For the fiscal half-year period ended last September, it didn't: Because Japanese pulled so much yen out of the banking system, the ratio fell below its minimum target of 8%, to 7.6%, for the first time in 12 years.
Hayami, 77, successfully resisted pressure to hit the accelerator on the bank's bond purchases at a two-day central bank meeting beginning on Jan. 21. But his term expires in March, and things could get really radical then. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could tap a maverick--someone who'll make an aggressive effort to counter Japan's spiral of deflation by buying up everything in sight. Morgan Stanley analyst Takehiro Sato says that under such an "anything goes" monetary policy, the central bank could seek to relieve the debt burden of banks and corporations by adding more stocks, corporate bonds, and real estate to its portfolio. The idea would be not only to halt deflation but generate inflationary expectations that would give companies pricing power and prompt consumers to start spending again.
Concerned staffers see a grave situation if the central bank takes on risky assets and they plunge in value. Already, they point out, the bank's holdings--including government securities, gold, cash, overseas currencies, and foreign bonds--add up to $1.05 trillion. That's 60% more than the assets of the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Optimists point out that prices for the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond have been holding steady thanks to healthy demand. In any event, says Nikko Salomon Smith Barney economist Jeffrey D. Young, a weak balance sheet is the last thing the timid souls at the central bank should be worrying about. "Remember, their mandate is price stability," he says. That means keeping prices from cratering, even if the bank has to lift the rule limiting its total bond portfolio to the value of bank notes in circulation, about $600 billion.
Skeptics counter that more massive central bank bond purchases could set the stage for a bubble that would drive prices skyward--until investors, worried that the bank had lost all discipline, panic and hit the sell button, sending prices crashing. One official notes that just a 10% fall in the value of the central bank's bond portfolio would wipe out close to $42 billion in reserve capital.
If things really spin out of control, the central bank at some point might have to turn to the government, which holds a 55% stake, for a capital infusion. That would be humiliating for a rich country such as Japan. More important, such a bailout could forever undercut the bank's independence. Watch out, Mr. Koizumi: A central bank's credibility is one asset that's irreplaceable.
By Brian Bremner in Tokyo
Look at the charts below. This tells me all I need to know. It will get worse before it gets better.
http://stockcharts.com/gallery?$COMPQ
My comment was self inflicting. I was indicating myself for what it worth and I forgot the... hehehe and LOL. It was not directed towards anyone on this board.
My Hungarian little rusty but Money is a universal language.
"most of us know how to read." LOL I wonder who is excluded from the "most". I could add at least one.
MSFT was snap up into the close. 20 cent run up.
This market is brutal. Out of longs. MMM is falling again.
I think we rally after Bush speaks and Greenspans give us another rate cut. Long the Techs here.
edit: That is why I am out of Gold and into tech at this point.
got out of gold and now in FLEX, INTC to name a few.
Yes, could be a head fake. Taking profits and waiting for additional signals.
Now we know why the run up. Thanks again FR.
BEAS holding up nicely.
Thanks for the report.
I like what I see in the Nasdaq. I'am long here.