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The mystery of $600 million traded in the blink of an eye

Elise Hu
WKU Public Radio
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:52 UTC
Computer Trading
© Richard Drew/AP
A television monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the decision the Federal Reserve made on Sept. 18, 2013.
Here's a mystery involving physics, technology and the markets that meant the difference between nothing and millions of dollars.

Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced it would not be tapering its bond buying program at 2 p.m. ET. The news takes seven milliseconds - about the speed of light - to reach Chicago. But before the seven milliseconds was up, a few huge orders based on the Fed's decision were placed on Chicago exchanges. CNBC broke the story:
"According to trading data reviewed by CNBC, they began buying in Chicago-traded assets just before others in that city could possibly have been aware of the Fed's decision. By one estimate, as much as $600 million in assets changed hands in the milliseconds before most other traders in Chicago could learn of the Fed's September surprise - a sharp contrast to the very low volume of trading ahead of the Fed's decision."
How did this happen? Right now, we don't know. But in high-speed trading, where computer algorithms fed by data make trades based on pre-programmed strategies, the difference between trading at seven milliseconds after the news and two milliseconds after the news can be worth millions.
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Dollar

AIG CEO compares bonus criticism to lynch mobs

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:50 UTC
Robert Benmosche
© Gianluca Colla/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Robert Benmosche, CEO of AIG.
AIG has a lengthy history of producing some of the biggest tools on Wall Street. Former CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg was considered one of the world's preeminent unapologetic narcissists even before he sued the government for providing an insufficiently generous bailout. Joe Cassano, former chief of AIG's financial products division, was another: first he arrogantly blew off the accountants who warned him his portfolio of hundreds of billions in uncollateralized bets might destroy the world, then told clients pre-crash his portfolio wouldn't lose a dollar, and then after it all went kablooey, tiptoed back to D.C. (after first being assured of not being prosecuted, mind you) from his lavish four-story townhouse in London just long enough to tell the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he had absolutely nothing to be sorry about and they could bite him and his hundreds of millions in earnings if they disagreed.

Now a third AIG executive enters the pantheon of tone-deaf AIG bigwigs: CEO Robert Benmosche, who just told the Wall Street Journal that the post-crash public outcry over the use of bailout money to pay bonuses to executives in Cassano's Financial Products unit was comparable to - get this - lynchings in the deep south. From reporter Leslie Scism's interview:
The uproar over bonuses "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that - sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong."
For sheer "Let them eat cake"-ness, this ranks right up there with Lloyd Blankfein's "I'm doing God's work" riff and Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charlie Munger's line about how it was proper to bail out Wall Street, but people in foreclosure should "suck it in and cope."
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Pistol

Kenya Americans and Briton 'among mall attackers', says Kenyan foreign minister

Agencies
theguardian.com
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:43 UTC
Westgate mall
© Boniface Muthoni/Corbis
Smoke rises from the Westgate mall on Monday.
Amina Mohamed says Briton who has 'done this many times before' was involved in attack with 'two or three' Americans

A British woman who has allegedly taken part in terrorist activity "many times before" was among the attackers who laid siege to a Kenyan shopping mall, the country's foreign minister has said.

Amina Mohamed said the militant acted alongside "two or three" Americans during the atrocity in Nairobi which has killed at least 62 people, including six Britons.

The announcement will fuel speculation that the British terrorism suspect Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to the 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was involved.
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Stop

Shutdown countdown: What the next eight days could bring

Paul Kane
The Washington Post
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:38 UTC
White House
© The Washington Post
On Friday, the House passed a measure that would keep the government running through mid-December. But it came with what Democrats consider a poison pill: It defunds President Obama's signature health-care law, known as Obamacare. There is no way whatsoever - think pigs flying - that the Senate will agree to the House plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the House bill was "dead," then for emphasis added: "Dead." ¶ That sets up eight days of brinkmanship between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and White House, leading to midnight Sept. 30, when much of the government will shut down if there's no deal. ¶ Leaders on Capitol Hill expect the face-off to go right up to the deadline, if not beyond. Below is a day-by-day look at how it's all likely to play out - with the caveat that events can change quickly.

Monday: The Senate will convene briefly, with just a few members on hand. Reid is expected to call up the House bill, known as a continuing resolution, and file a motion that sets up initial votes on the measure. Under Senate rules, there will be two votes just to determine whether the chamber gets to a vote on final passage of the bill. These are the "cloture" votes, which require 60 ayes to choke off a filibuster; Reid will file a motion one day, then there must be an intervening day of debate, then the filibuster-busting vote comes. Reid will file the first of these Monday, setting up a vote Wednesday.

The House is not in session.
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Pumpkin

The Federal Reserve Bank taper hoax

Max Keiser
RT
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 13:26 UTC

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, discuss the US Federal Reserve Bank as 'the greatest hedge fund' in history and ask whether or not their quantitative easing policy is like trying to pass pork off as a prime cut of beef. In the second half, Max interviews precious metals trader, Andrew Maguire, about JPMorgan whistleblowers and the Federal Reserve Bank taper hoax.
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Question

Nationalities of Kenya shopping mall gunmen unknown

Sudarsan Raghavan
The Washington Post
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 18:34 UTC
Image
© Jonathan Kalan/AP
Civilians who had been hiding in the Westgate mall in Nairobi are led to safety by armed police.
One of the Islamist militants wore a white turban, witnesses said, while others wore black head scarves. Most were in civilian clothes, but a few wore camouflage fatigues. Some carried sophisticated machine guns, and others wielded the AK-47 rifles widely used by African insurgents. Most of the extremists who seized the upscale Nairobi mall were young and barked orders in English.

By Monday evening, Kenyan security forces said they controlled much of the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall, although several militants from al-Shabab, a group allied with al-Qaeda, appeared dug in, determined to fight to the death.

With the standoff apparently drawing to a close after three days, there was a growing focus on the identity of the militants and how they could pull off a sophisticated assault that killed at least 62 people and kept security forces at bay for three days. Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said Monday that "two or three Americans" and "one Brit" were among the perpetrators of the attack.
      Read More...
USA

Coincidence? Pressure piles on Obama to strike Shabaab

Kevin J. Kelley
Daily Nation
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters
Some lawmakers and analysts in the United States are urging President Obama to launch strikes against al-Shabaab with the aim of preventing more terror attacks in Kenya and possibly the United States.
Some lawmakers and analysts in the United States are urging President Obama to launch strikes against al-Shabaab with the aim of preventing more terror attacks in Kenya and possibly the United States.

''We're talking about very significant terrorist groups here which are showing a capacity to attack outside of their borders and actually recruit people from here in the United States," Republican Congressman Peter King, a member of the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee, said on US television on Sunday.

"They're not on the decline," added Senator Tom Coburn, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. ''They're on the rise, as you can see from Nairobi."

US counter-terrorism officials warn that Shabaab's sophistication and reach are increasing due to connections the Somalia group has made with al-Qa'ida forces in Yemen and with Boko Haram militants in Nigeria.
      Read More...
Black Magic

Congressional Nazi Mike Rogers wants to "kill all whistle blowers"


BrasscheckTV
Sat, 21 Sep 2013 00:00 UTC
Rep. Mike Rogers
© AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan
Rep. Mike Rogers(R-Michigan)
A look back...

Here's an idiot Congressman and former FBI agent calling for the state murder of Bradley Manning.

What did Bradley Manning do?

He released video that documented a war crime.

Let's remember what happened here. A helicopter attack ship hovered over a group of unarmed men, including journalists, and gunned them down in cold blood.

How did this video put "soldiers in the field" at risk? The killers in this case were obviously long gone and, as far as I know, they were never identified.
      Read More...
Attention

Emergency responders say that radios failed during Navy Yard attack

Kevin Bogardus
The Hill
Thu, 19 Sep 2013 16:38 UTC
Washington Navy Yard shooting
© Washington Post
10 people shot at Navy Yard: Police search for active shooter on grounds of Washington Navy Yard in Southeast D.C.

Radios for federal firefighters and police officers failed during Monday's mass shooting at Washington's Navy Yard, according to union representatives for first responders.

Union officials said police and firefighters resorted to using their cellphones and radios from D.C.'s emergency responders to communicate with each other during the attack.

Anthony Meely, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police Naval District Washington (NDW) Labor Committee, said police officers who were first on the scene at the Navy Yard had trouble communicating with others in the force via their radios.

Initially, officers found that their radios were working. But as they ventured deeper into the building where the shooting took place, their equipment stopped functioning.

After the first shootout with the gunman, one officer found his radio's battery was dead, while another officer could not receive a signal from his radio and was unable to call for help. That forced them to use an officer's cellphone to call others outside the building, according to Meely.

"They had to use their cellphone to just call out and tell them what's going on," Meely said

Comment: The radio was clearly jammed. So Alexis wasn't acting alone.

Perhaps they learned from Sandy Hook that it's easier to take complete control of the airwaves by jamming them altogether, rather than try to manipulate them during and after the fact.

Washington D.C. elite tactical police units were ordered to stand down while massacre took place at Navy Yard

Washington Navy Yard Shooting: What's The Point?

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MIB

Irish woman, the "White Widow", suspected of involvement in Kenyan terror attack

Patrick Counihan
IrishCentral.com
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 17:33 UTC
Image
© AP
Samantha Lewthwaite, from County Down, dubbed the "White Widow" of the London bombings on 7/7, is a suspect in the ongoing attack on the Nairobi mall, where at least 69 people have been killed
County Down woman Samantha Lewthwaite has been on the run since 2011

Police in Britain and Kenya are investigating links between an Irish woman branded the "White Widow" and the shopping mall siege in Nairobi that has claimed 69 lives so far.

County Down born terrorist Samantha Lewthwaite is suspected of involvement in the attack.

Kenyan soldiers stated a white woman with a veil was calling out orders to gunmen in Arabic during the dreadful massacre at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

Al Qaeda linked terror group, Al Shabaab, claimed responsibility and wrote on Twitter that Samantha Lewthwaite, the "White Widow" of London 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was "in their ranks" and a "brave lady".

The 29-year-old from Banbridge is on the run from the Kenyan authorities after she was previously linked to a terrorist cell that planned to attack a hotel or shopping mall in 2011.

Comment: See also:

British widow of 7/7 patsy 'plotted terrorist attacks' against Kenyan targets from network of luxury safe houses in Mombasa

London 7/7 bomber's British widow 'on the run' over links with Kenya terrorist cell

      Read More...
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