Stocks enter the final hour with modest losses on little significant news. July Import Prices increased .2% following a 2% jump in oil prices. The annualized rate increased to 4.9% most of that because of fuel prices, as it is just 2.8% without it.
Initial Claims for unemployment increased to 484,000 as claims seem to be moving above the range seen in the last few months. A volatile series the 4-week moving average gained 15,000 to 474,000. Continuing claims slipped further to 4.52 million as more exhaust benefits.
There have been precious few actual prosecutions in the wake of the financial crises. The Huffington Post wondered, “What’s a bankster got to do to get arrested in this town”. I’ve said for years that this one done deliberately, that they knew it would end badly, that they went out of their way to keep the party going and that the regulators actually helped them at times. 3-years later very little has been done in the way of either holding the perps accountable or actual prevention.
The so called Financial Reform Bill is long on verbiage, contains enough loopholes to satisfy nearly every bankster in the land and is almost devoid of actual reform. While I’m not holding my breath on this one, we may yet see justice done with actual executives frog marched downtown with matching bracelets. Because despite strenuous claims that they didn’t know and other BS excuses it is slowly coming out that in fact they did know, worse willfully committed fraud and lied in an attempt to cover it up. Something the FCIC has now documented, even a revitalized SEC seems to be getting in on the act. To date, to big to fail has been synonymous with too big to jail. Something the Financial Reform Act was supposed to address but didn’t, thank you Congress Critters.
How does it go, “no justice, no peace”. The demonstration in Watsonville earlier this week at the Chase bank is an expression of the public’s frustration with a lack of justice as the banksters collect their bonuses while John and Jane Doe collects food stamps, unemployment and foreclosure notices. If our elected representatives can’t or won’t demand accountability for this then the public needs to exercise its democratic rights and demand it because no society can function without justice and the rule of law applied evenly.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
