Minneapolis Fed Chief Warns Inflation is too Low

Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota warned Tuesday in a Rochester speech that said the central bank is not fulfilling its duties." Below-target inflation signals the "significant problem" in the U.S. economy, Kocherlakota said: "Resources are being wasted."
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/blog/banking/2014/04/inflation-is-too-low-minneapolis-fed-chief-argues.html

Beef prices have reached all-time highs in the U.S. and aren't expected to come down any time soon.
"We've seen strong prices before but nothing this extreme," said Dennis Smith, a commodities broker for Archer Financial Services in Chicago. "This is really new territory."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-beef-prices-20140406,0,2966247.story#ixzz2yOSdBM3V

The New Improved Ukraine

"[P]resident Barack Obama called the deal a “major step forward” that will “meet the needs of Ukrainian people over the long term.”
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"Instead, the IMF recipe hinges on cuts to subsidies and social services and a floating exchange rate that will sink purchasing power even further. Kiev has already started to implement all of these measures. According to economists, the result will be growing poverty, reduced social benefits and an extended recession.
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In the first “prior action” for the IMF loan, Ukraine’s state-controlled natural gas provider Naftogaz raised its subsidized gas prices for consumers by 50 percent starting May 1. (Gas and heating prices will increase by 120 percent over the next four years, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said last week.) According to Kiselyov, even more painful will be the accompanying 40 percent gas price hike for local heating companies. Starting on July 1, this will raise the average cost of heating a standard fifty-square-meter apartment from about 200 hryvnia to 280 hryvnia (from $18 to $25) per month. It’s a significant hit, considering that the average monthly wage in Ukraine is only about 3,150 hryvnia ($275), more than half of which typically goes toward food, Kiselyov said.
http://www.thenation.com/article/179212/will-imf-bailout-turn-ukraine-another-greece#
 

When Enforcement Goes to the Penthouse, Good Manners are Paramount

Comments by James Kidney. Former trial attorney for the SEC.

"[T]he SEC has become an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,”
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“On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. 
My superiors were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases. The agency’s penalties have become at most a tollbooth on the bankster turnpike.”
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“I have had bosses, and bosses of my bosses, whose names we all know, who made little secret that they were here to punch their ticket. They mouthed serious regard for the mission of the commission, but their actions were tentative and fearful in many instances.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/sec-goldman-lawyer-says-agency-too-timid-on-wall-street-misdeeds.html

Obushma

[O]bama’s position is irrelevant, notes Professor Cohen. "While Washington is insisting that Russia invaded Crimea, the facts indicate that Russia was acting according the law."
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“What’s happening inside Ukraine is scary and it can provoke a war, a horrible war."

 Stephen F. Cohen. Professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_03/US-is-responsible-for-escalation-of-crisis-in-Ukraine-Stephen-Cohen-1822/