WHO warns, usage of cell phones may increase risk of cancer. Nokia tumbled some 18% yesterday, and is falling hard today again, another 10%. The company is trading at levels not seen since last millenium. People are soon discounting the death of Nokia. Let’s see if they go bust, or if they manage to do another spectacular turn around, just like they did last time the stock was “bidless”.

The radiofrequency electromagnetic fields generated by cell phones may increase the risk of brain cancer in humans, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said Tuesday. In a statement, the agency classified the risk of the fields as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” “Given the potential consequences for public health of this classification and findings, it is important that additional research be conducted into the long-term, heavy use of mobile phones,” said Christopher Wild, IARC Director, in a statement. “Pending the availability of such information, it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as hands-free devices or texting.

Full report,

who1june

With the European history, different cultures, and religion, it is rather important to understand the history of this continent, before laying out plans of austerity and other measures of how to cure the sick countries of Europe. Below some good insight. Courtesey T. Long.

It was the perception of getting something of value without any meaningful sacrifice that initially fostered the EU Monetary Union. Though the countries of Europe were fiercely nationalistic they were willing to surrender minor sovereign powers only if it was going to prove advantageous to them. They were certainly unwilling to relinquish sufficient sovereignty to create the requisite political union required for its success.

After a decade long trial period it is now time to pay the price for Monetary Union. I suspect that the EU membership is unwilling to do so. Though they likely will see the price as too high to do so, the price to not do so has become even greater. They have unwittingly been trapped by a well crafted strategy.

Never has a monetary union functioned without a political union with which to control Fiscal Policy. This was well understood by the strategists but not the salivating sovereign leaders looking for cheaper money to finance election candy and avoid unpopular, pressing economic realities.

It was expected that the obstacle of political union would inevitably give way when the pre-ordained and unavoidable political crisis forced the issue. We are presently at the cusp of this crisis in Europe. As we just experienced the Arab Spring we are about the experience the European Summer on an unavoidable path to the American Autumn and World Winter in an unfolding “Age of Rage’.

The initial resolution of sovereign debt defaults by the bailouts of Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain (GIIPS) will eventually be the creation of a Eurobond, in my measured opinion. It is the next move on the strategic chessboard being carefully orchestrated.

A Eurobond will allow the ECB to issue debt. With the ability to issue that debt, the obligatory abilities to pay for it will come. Paying for a Eurobond will mean giving up gradually increasing levels of sovereign taxation.

The current political impediment to political union is that never has a ruling political regime been willing to surrender the golden jewels, specifically public taxation. But this will happen because it is the hidden strategic goal now operating in Europe.

To understand the real European Strategy you need to appreciate the history of Europe and its cultural diversity. Ever since the Roman Empire and Charlemagne, leaders have dreamed of a single Europe. No one in modern times from Napoleon to Hitler has been successful.

The one thing the European nations understand and for a time were successful at, was Mercantile Colonialism. They were the ones that invented it. When I say ‘they’, I refer to Kings and their financiers. The Kings may now be gone, but the financiers are even more powerful today than ever before.

The European banks are slowly but surely, through a tactic of Financial Arbitrage, moving more and more sovereign debt to the ECB and EU. Someone must pay for this debt and that will eventually be the entire European taxpayer base. That is the goal.

Full report,

tlong1june

Arab Spring spreading to Eastern parts of Europe? The crisis (ex the S&P longs) has hit  the Economies of Spain, Italy and other European countries. Many migrant workers, have now lost their jobs, and the ability to support the families at home. Could this evolve into something larger, and eventually start big protests in those already suffering countries?

Economic and political tremors from the financial crisis that struck affluent Western Europe are shaking the least prosperous edges of the Continent, raising the pressure on families—and nations—across Eastern Europe and the Balkans and fueling social unrest.

As migrant workers from Europe’s periphery have lost jobs or seen their wages cut amid the downturn, the amount of cash they are sending back has dropped sharply. And jobless rates have soared as those out of work return to communities they had left in search of a better life.

That dislocation is translating into mounting pressure on governments short of money. Demonstrators have taken to the streets this year in Romania, Croatia and Serbia—all affected by slowing remittances—in protests fueled by economic woes. (WSJ)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703784004576220292415000236.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLETopNews

Keep your formulas right. The Economist reports;

FOR Hong Kong’s population, trading in complex financial products rivals a day at the track. Despite the territory’s tiny size, its market for “exchange-traded warrants” is the most active in the world. Last year’s turnover of $534 billion put it far ahead of South Korea and Germany, the next biggest. The instruments give investors the right to buy a security at a fixed price, allowing them to bet on which way a market will move or to arbitrage differences between the warrant and its components.

Almost 14,400 such products were issued in Hong Kong last year by a dozen or so big banks, each with a prospectus the size of a phone book that must be approved by the exchange’s listing committee and incurs a registration fee of HK$100,000 ($13,000). Given the warrants’ complexity, problems can emerge. Few cases will excite moreSchadenfreude than that involving Goldman Sachs.

On February 11th Goldman issued four warrants tied to Japan’s Nikkei index which were described in three separate filings amounting to several hundred pages. Buried in the instructions to determine the settlement price was a formula that read “(Closing Level – Strike Level) x Index Currency Amount x Exchange Rate”. It is Goldman’s contention that rather than multiplying the currency amount by the exchange rate, it should have divided by the exchange rate. Oops.

http://www.economist.com/node/18744559

The CME just announced it is lowering margins on S&P Futures. Great news, now we can definitely go all in long and push the market through the resistance levels. All those long futures Fed has been buying over the last year, are all of a sudden demanding less margin, so they can now buy some more….

Full report; cme31may