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ExberlinerBerlin in English since 2002
Music & clubs
WTF Berlin! Jacinta Nandi's A to Z guide for expats
Jacinta Nandi on her new book WTF Berlin: Expatsplaining the German Capital.
A Berliner for 22 years, Jacinta Nandi has some sage advice for newcomers to the city. Photo: Iinaroosa Viitanen
Author and Exberliner blogger Jacinta Nandi's latest book is a Berlin survival guide covering everything expats need to know: from posh Spätis and church tax to why everyone loves dogs and hates babies.
We met her to discuss dating in the Hauptstadt, culture wars and why learning German is a luxury.
This is your fifth book. How did you first get into writing – you were an English teacher when you first moved here, right?
Yeah, but I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first romance novel at 16, on a second-hand typewriter my dad had bought me that didn't have an exclamation mark. I guess maybe you need a few exclamation marks when you're writing a romance novel! Then I came to Berlin and I was always writing, I was always like, I'm gonna become a writer. Back then, you had to send things off with the post, remember? I wrote for zines, I can't remember the names of them now. And then in 2007 or so I started blogging for Exberliner, first the AMOK Mama blog and later WTF Berlin. The first book I ever published was Deutsch werden: Why German people love playing frisbee with their nana naked in 2011. All my books have got such tacky titles! I think my latest book might be the tackiest of all, but it's a tacky book so it's really fitting.
People say 'oh, your book is slagging off Germans'. But I'm German now. I've been here for 22 years, so they can suck it up.
You write in the book that "making Germans think I hate them is basically a sexual fetish of mine". Is it awkward as an expat talking to Germans about how they're different and analysing their culture?
People say 'oh, your book is slagging off Germans'. But I'm German now. I've been here for 22 years, so they can suck it up. Berlin has changed a lot since I arrived here and I'm always going on about it. But sometimes I do think we're a bit precious aren't we, as expats who've been here a bit? Always going on about how much rents cost in 2003. Compare the changes we've seen to what the Wende must have been like for the old Ossis [East Germans]! That must have been more of a shock. I got here in 2000, and the expats who had been here longer talked about the 1980s and 1990s: that was the real Berlin and I'd missed it. People would also talk about the Wende times when the Wall had just fallen and say you've missed everything. So there's this sense in Berlin of always having missed everything. Lauren Oyler writes about this in her new book, Fake Accounts.
Do you think Berlin has got more conservative over the years, less liberal?
It's just got a lot more expensive, hasn't it? Back in the day, it felt like you could go out with €5 in your pocket and then someone would open a trap door and you would climb down and there would be all these punks or even Roma people and you'd be like 'where the fuck are we' and then someone would give you MDMA for no money and then you'd be gone for a week. Now it's like, 'Oh, do you want to go for vegan pancakes? Do you want to go for vegan Sex on the Beach?' I like veganism, I wish I was a vegan, really, but Berlin is so posh, so vegan now. It feels like it's got a bit more like London where for a good night out you need to spend ₤100. It's not just me going to posher places, is it? We're posh now.
And what about this new phenomenon of posh Spätis? And they call it 'Späti World'. You can sit outside and have a 'Späti Erlebnis'. You know I paid €7.50 for Pommes the other day? When I came here there was the Deutsche Mark and everything was so cheap. Döner kebab was like one DM and stuff. And a Mark was like 30 cents. I've turned into a GDR granny in my old age. I'm at the till shouting with pure shock when the cashier tells me how much I have to pay. I don't know how the actual GDR grannies are surviving? Hopefully they're shoplifting a bit!
I don't know how the actual GDR grannies are surviving? Hopefully they're shoplifting a bit!
WTF Berlin is a "survival guide" for expats in Berlin from Anmeldung to Zug and everything in between. What are your top tips for surviving the city?
Just make sure you don't pay church tax and you'll have a great time! Try not to spend more than €2500 on a one-room apartment. Don't get pregnant. The book also has loads of tips for learning German. But you know, I didn't write this book because I think people have to learn German. I actually don't think people should learn German because they think it will make their lives better or easier. I don't think it works. There are literally loads of people in Berlin who can't speak a word of German and are much richer and happier than me!
There are all these skinny high earners sitting in their home office in Kreuzberg doing whatever people do, these rich people with proper jobs. They don't need to learn German. People in Berlin don't need to learn German. Fuck, even a lot of Germans in Berlin aren't speaking much German anymore. This book is not about learning German because you need to. Learning German is a luxury. It's about learning German because you want to. Because it's fun. And if people aren't judgy or snobby about German people's English, then I don't think they're losers if they've been here 10 years and they can't speak a word of German. I really don't. To be honest, I think you're a bit of a loser if you can speak German and you've been here over 20 years and you're still an impoverished single mum living in Lichtenrade.
There's a section on dating in the book. What's your advice to expats arriving on the dating scene here?
Okay, so my best advice is: You know you've been friends with a German guy for ages and he keeps on asking you to really specific events? Like super specific events, like Hungarian cinema festivals and stuff. He'll say to you: 'You seem to me like you would really be into Hungarian cinema!' I spent 20 years thinking I gave German men the impression I was into Hungarian cinema and stuff, but actually, they are asking you out on a date. That's how German boys do dating. They go, 'do you like Hungarian cinema? There's a Hungarian cinema festival on.' And you're like, 'No? Why would I like Hungarian cinema, I just like normal cinema.' So that is my literally only advice and it took me 20 years to work this out. The more specific the event they invite you to is, the more likely it is to be a date.
Jacinta Nandi with her irreverent new guide: WTF Berlin: Expatsplaining the German Capital. Photo: Iinaroosa Viitanen
You also talk about "integration" in the book…
Oh God, I don't know what integration means. What does it mean? I have no idea what it means. I also don't know what the point of the Ausländerbehörde is now that everyone's in home office. What's the point? Just get rid of the Ausländerbehörde, we don't need it. Now literally everyone who arrives in Berlin is working home office. Their company is in Singapore, they could be in Berlin, Rome, Barcelona or London. They decide to come to Berlin because someone told them how great our vegan pancakes are, what's the Ausländerbehörde got to do with it? They're just totally made irrelevant. So yeah, fire them all, all the Beamte at the Ausländerbehörde. Send them to Bali, the tiny bit of work they still have to do they can do in Bali! They can all have a work-cation in Bali.
With this whole shitstorm culture online, do you still feel like you can write anything – or are you self-censoring more?
No, I don't think I self-censor that much. But I feel more and more, like, do I need to have an opinion about everything? I feel like it's just exhausting for people: someone in America does something and then everyone in the world has an opinion, you know? I can remember a few years ago East German boys, they didn't know who Jennifer Lopez was and stuff. And now they know everything. Everyone knows everything. They know that there's campuses in America where white people with dreadlocks aren't allowed in, they know all these details about every shitstorm and people are exhausted. We're just in the middle of a culture war, and I don't want to take part in it. I'm on the side of the oppressed, I am, but I still don't want to take part in every single fucking shitstorm. I want to be a good ally and everything, but I even don't want to jump on the J.K. Rowling bandwagon, you know? I'm not going to buy her books, but I just hate the culture wars and I don't want to take part in them.
I can remember a few years ago East German boys, they didn't know who Jennifer Lopez was and stuff. And now they know everything.
You talk about life in Lichtenrade in the book and how there are no Spätis there. How did you end up living there?
My real name's Jacinta Nandi-Pietschmann and I applied for all these flats just as Nandi-Pietschmann and I didn't get any flat viewings. And my middle name is Marie, so then I called myself Marie Pietschmann and I applied for flats, and then Marie Pietschmann got the same amount of flat viewings in one day that Jacinta Nandi-Pietschmann got in three months. I was so pissed off. I was still living with my ex, in his flat, with my kids, it was such a fraught, tense time in my life. So I wrote to the Wohnungsbaugesellschaft and said 'you're dicks', and they phoned me up and said, you know, 'Where does your son go to school? Where do you want to live?' and then they showed me the flat in Lichtenrade, and they didn't show anyone else that flat. It's really nice, I got a balcony. I love Lichtenrade. But I'm also commuting the whole time, like, there's nothing there. Well, there's people there and forests, but there's nothing to do. All the Mexican food, Greek food, Italian food, it's all like 2006, 2004 even. Lichtenrade is like some kind of weird time loop place.
Is it becoming gentrified?
No, honestly mate, they don't even know what gentrification is. But in Mariendorf, there is some graffiti on the side of a kindergarten: 'Protect trans kids'. So someone's speaking English, not just me. And they know about trans kids! And want to protect them. So, I guess we're not in a total time loop. You know, when people get too nostalgic about the olden days in Berlin, they're forgetting how bad the food was. Because I remember – and I'm not a foodie – it was just awful. It was just all coated in this grease of Germanness. There was nothing to it. It was like eating a plate of nothing. The food's so good now. It's really okay now. I mean, compared to what it was.
You know, when people get too nostalgic about the olden days in Berlin, they're forgetting how bad the food was.
So gentrification has its benefits?
No, it's terrible, I hate it… but also, I don't wanna eat some of the chickpea curries I ate in 2006, they were really bad. They really traumatised me. I don't get why you can't have nice things to eat and cheap flats. You know what I want for Lichtenrade? All I want is one café that a mum with another mum could go to during the day when she's dropped the kids off at Kita. And it's actually a café with all that café stuff they have. We don't need to be Neukölln, we don't need vegan pancakes. I want us to become Schöneberg. Not even Schöneberg, I just want us to have one Schöneberg café there with all these nice little bits of food. And Aperol spritz.
What is the real Berlin to you?
Lichtenrader Damm. Dönerladen. Shall I start inviting journalists to this really shitty döner kebab laden on Lichtentenrader Damm? You can get alcohol there and then I can turn it into a posh, hipster döner kebab club. It's already half gentrified because 'shop' is in English. That's the only thing that's better in Lichtenrade than the rest of Berlin, that all the kebab shops sell alcohol. Well, no, there's two things. Number one, the flat prices. Number two, you can always buy alcohol at a döner kebab place.
WTF Berlin: Expatsplaining the German Capital by Jacinta Nandi (Satyr, 2022) is out now.
The WTF Berlin book launch takes place at The Word on Friday, May 13 at 8pm. Willmanndamm 4, 10827 Berlin.
WTF Berlin!
by Helen Whittle
2022 in review: Berlin's best books of the year
Annett Gröschner: "I'm interested in the Berlin of the broke, the downtrodden"
"My rebellion is humour": Jan Faktor on his novel, Trottel
Babylon Berlin author Volker Kutsche: "Nobody wants to be a Nazi"
The Wartburg Experiment: Martin Luther reloaded
What to read this month: November 2022
Adrian Duncan: Bogs, Bilbao and electrification
What to read this month: October 2022
Penned it like Beckham: Berlin's new wave of football literature
The Abridged Library of Helen DeWitt
Damon Galgut at ILB 2022: "I'm not sure if life is a comedy or a tragedy"
Bernardine Evaristo at ILB 2022: "I grew up in a racist society"
Exberliner
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Q: Installing Ubuntu 12.04 on EFI system Fellas, need help. Trying to install Ubuntu 12.04 on laptop to dual boot alongside Win7. I have UEFI and GPT partitioning scheme. It has optional Legacy boot mode though. I can boot from Ubuntu USB/CD in both Legacy and UEFI modes. But when I reach partition selection step, it gives me error "ubi-partman failed with exit code 141".
I searched forums for this but those who encountered this error said it was resolved when they detached one of two HDs in their system. But I have only one hard disk attached and I am sure Ubuntu's GRUB supports GPT. But looks like it is not able to read GPT partitions on my HD. Any help regarding this will be appreciated.

A: Your parted output suggests you've got a partition table problem, or at least an issue that libparted (which is used both by the text-mode parted program and the Ubuntu partitioner) is interpreting as a partition table problem. The "Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character" message suggests that parted is having problems interpreting the partition name, which is officially a UTF16-encoded name. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, parted didn't do proper UTF-16 encoding or decoding of partition names; instead, it tried to interpret them as a sort of modified ASCII -- or in practice, a modified UTF-8. This could lead to problems if a real UTF-16 partition name used non-ASCII characters, since they might then look like gibberish when interpreted as a modified UTF-8. Since libparted is very sensitive to errors and offers little in the way of corrective tools, the result is an error, as both parted and the Ubuntu installer demonstrate.
If I'm right (and I'm far from certain that I am), you should be able to correct the problem as follows:

*

*Boot into the Ubuntu (or any other Linux) rescue disk.

*If necessary, download and install GPT fdisk (gdisk). It's available as the gdisk package in Ubuntu.

*Type sudo gdisk /dev/sda to launch gdisk on your problem disk.

*Type v to verify the disk's data structures. If gdisk reports any problems, it could be that parted was reacting to some problem other than the partition name, and that may need to be dealt with instead of (or at least before) proceeding with the below steps.

*Type p to view your partition table. Look for any non-ASCII characters in the "Name" column.

*Type c to change the name of any partition that has a strange name. You'll be asked for a partition number and a new name. Repeat this for as many partitions as necessary (up to all of them).

*Type p to review your partition table to be sure everything looks sane.

*If everything looks good, type w to save your changes and exit from gdisk.

If my suspicion is correct, you should now be able to proceed with Ubuntu installation. If I'm correct, this is a libparted bug, which should be reported to Ubuntu and/or to the libparted developers. Recording the names of all your partitions for inclusion in your bug report is worth doing.

A: Use Wubi Ubuntu iso to install Ubuntu to dual boot with Windows. I had done so and it worked fine. You can also uninstall it from Windows itself.

A: I have a Sony Vaie SeriesE, 14". I ve had some kind of similar problems than anhiruddabhide.
So far, I have taken the hard disk with the Win 7 out and add a new one on which I installed Ubuntu. No problem. Of course, it is not a solution that would have made aniruddhabhide happy.
Now the funny thing is that Ubuntu was UNABLE to start when the EFI option was set up in the BIOS. So I turned it to Legacy.
Legacy works for me real good. Nevertheless, nearly each time, the computer does not boot "No system found". After CTRL+ALT+SUPP, computer reboots and the Grub kicks in.
I have to say it is not GRUB nor UBUNTU's fault, but some wicked stuff in the SOny BIOS which is far from satisfying (hardly any option available).
I'll try two things and keep you posted:

*

*Reinstall the Ubuntu partition on a bigger hard disk contianing a copy of the SONY's VAIO original hard disk.

*Install a slim rack DVDreplacement in order to put a second hard disk instead of the DVD player installed by VAIO. That way I'll have two hard disks, which is way better for backups and combining systems (Windows + Ubuntu for instance).

A: Ubuntu doesn't recommend using wubi any longer.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/04/wubi-advice

A: Some ASUS models use Aptio firmware from American Megatrends. It appears the BIOS is case sensitive. It looks for the filename EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi, but Ubuntu provides EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/1261465.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Von wright swedish birds original antique bird print color is one images from 31 simple swedish bird prints ideas photo of Baxters Homes photos gallery. This image has dimension 600x600 Pixel and File Size 57 KB, you can click the image above to see the large or full size photo. Previous photo in the gallery is set swedish bird prints stdibs. For next photo in the gallery is duck blue swedish bird print nafftastic etsy. You are viewing image #27 of 31, you can see the complete gallery at the bottom below.


Jim (Jame "O" Parney), age 83 of Centerville passed away on April 13, 2019 at home.
He is survived by his wife Katharine of 56 years, daughter Christine Kemper and her husband Bill, and brother Thomas R. Parnell and his wife Shelby.
He was a Veteran of the US Navy, and a 32nd Degree Mason. He served 28 years for the City of Dayton Fire Department as dispatcher, firefighter, and inspector, and he also Volunteered for the City of Kettering Fire Department.
The Visitation will be held from 10-11am on Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at Tobias Funeral Home, Far Hills Chapel, 5471 Far Hills Ave. The Funeral Service will begin at 11am on Wednesday at the funeral home. Private family burial to follow. In lieu of flowers send donations to Hospice of Dayton.
My best friend Chrissy, I think one of the greatest memories I have of your father is when we were young and he would take us to his firehouse. I thought that was coolest thing. He touched lives I don't even think he knew about. He will be missed. Love and prayers for Chrissy and Kathy.


When technology shares sold off at the very end of last week, credit indices hardly reacted. And for a reason: they do not include any of the Apple, Alphabet, Facebook or Google of this world. Credit investors focused instead on reassuring macro news regarding the cohesion of the European Union and sent indices tighter across the board. In the absence of specific news today, the rebound in tech stocks could hardly be used as an excuse to justify the additional index tightening. There were simply no marginal buyers of index protection. Every time people came to get rid of hedges that do not seem to bring value any more – what is the point of paying carry in a market which has moved in a straight line over the last 7 weeks from 77bps to 57bps for iTraxx Main and from 69bps to 59bps on CDX IG -, no one was willing to step up and catch a falling knife. Except for a handful of names – almost all belonging to the energy and retail sectors -, people are not buying protection on single references either, so arbitragers are unlikely to bring any support to index protection. That rally might have more legs.


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Fabien Fivaz, né le  à La Chaux-de-Fonds (originaire des Montets), est une personnalité politique suisse, membre des Verts. Il est député au Conseil national depuis .

Biographie

Originaire des Montets, Fabien Fivaz est né le . Sa mère, allemande, est enseignante de langue et son père est dessinateur en machine.

Après avoir obtenu son baccalauréat au Gymnase de La Chaux-de-Fonds en 1996, il suit des études de biologie aux universités de Neuchâtel et de Lausanne. Il décroche son diplôme en 2002, complété par un postgrade en statistiques de l'Université de Neuchâtel en 2008, qu'il suit en cours d'emploi à partir de 2005. Il travaille depuis 2006 au Centre suisse de cartographie de la faune à Neuchâtel, dans lequel il a travaillé en tant que civiliste après son école de recrues.

Il est domicilié à La Chaux-de-Fonds, en couple, et père de deux enfants nés en 2011 et 2015.

Parcours politique

En 2003, à la suite de l'élection de Christoph Blocher au Conseil fédéral, il décide de devenir membre des Verts.

En , à , il est membre fondateur de la section neuchâteloise des Jeunes Verts. Il en est le premier coprésident avec Céline Vara. En 2006, il quitte cette coprésidence pour reprendre celle des Verts des Montagnes neuchâteloises.

De 2005 à 2009, il est conseiller général à La Chaux-de-Fonds. Il est élu député au Grand Conseil du canton de Neuchâtel de 2009 à 2019. Lors des élections cantonales de 2015, il prend la tête du groupe PopVertsSol.

Il est candidat au Conseil national en 2011 et 2015, mais ne parvient pas à sauver le siège des Verts neuchâtelois. Le , il est élu au Conseil national. Il devient vice-président de la Commission de la science, de l'éducation et de la culture (CSEC) et membre de la Commission de la politique de sécurité (CPS).

En , il accède à la vice-présidence du groupe des Verts au Parlement.

Engagements associatifs
Il est président de StopOGM de 2010 à 2016, avant de laisser sa place à la conseillère nationale Isabelle Chevalley. Il est président du Conseil de fondation de Ton sur Ton et membre du comité directeur de la fédération suisse de cyclisme depuis .

Notes et références

Liens externes

 Profil Smartvote 2019

Conseiller national suisse de la 51e législature
Personnalité politique neuchâteloise
Personnalité des Verts (Suisse)
Naissance en février 1978
Biologiste suisse

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Credence Research's latest report "Advanced Wound Care Market: Global Industry Analysis and Operational Strategies" discusses the deal-making activity during the past five years and in-depth analysis of the key deals involving more than 40 public and privately held CROs. The operational strategies adopted by key players in recent years have been listed. A heatmap analysis of the key companies was done based on their firm utilization and capital management.
The report firstly introduced the Advanced Wound Care basics: definitions, classifications, applications, and industry chain overview; industry policies and zplans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on.Then it analyzed the world's main region market states, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, trade and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.
The 'Advanced Wound Care – Global Trends, Estimates, and Forecasts, 2018-2026' reviews the latest trends in this industry with a perceptive to identify the near-future growth prospects. The Advanced Wound Care industry is a fragmented market with multiple participants, opens up numerous investment opportunities. An in-depth analysis across the geographic regions provides strategic business intelligence for the industry investments. The Advanced Wound Care report study offers profitable investment strategies for R&D organizations, manufacturing units, distributors, Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and many more in preferred locations.


Social networking. Social media. Online communities. The news is filled with these terms, and conversations with friends and colleagues are sprinkled liberally with references to online activities. Experts abound, with advice on how to navigate this new world, which has become oh-so important.
But what's it really all about? As a public affairs professional I have heard and read numerous times that this is the new way – we need to obliterate all our old ways of doing things and embrace the new way.
To me, public affairs or public relations or communications is all about relationships, and it always has been. I've been a writer for 24 years, and a public affairs manager for 15 of those 24 years. If you want your company in the news or if you want to catch the attention of your customers, you need to build relationships. First I built relationships by phone or in-person; then I added e-mail to that mix; now I've added online contacts and groups.
Pubic relations. Media relations. Internal relations. External relations. Customer relations. Constituent relations. The word has always been there loud and clear.
Yes, the internet and its growing applications is new, and we can all use the advice of the experts as we navigate our way around. Newspapers and other print media have had to change the way they do things. Those of us in the communications arena also need to change the way we do some things. But the basics remain. We need to recognize that online applications are simply new vehicles for disseminating our message. It's still about building relationships with folks who have the capability/the network/the platform to see that our messages reach our target audiences, or better yet building relationships directly with our target audience members.
Cultivating relationships with our target audiences SOUNDS simple, given all the online activities and forums, but it is exactly due to all that activity that messages are lost unless there is a more than tenuous relationship established.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 9:11 pm and is filed under media relations, public relations.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great blog! Relationships are key and I am so glad that you found me on linked in. It is nice to see what you are up to and I look forward to staying in touch. Please say hello to Linda and I will try to find her on linked in.
This is another post I wrote a few years ago. I've been talking about this subject quite a bit recently, so I dug this up to re-post.
My partner and I absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post's to be precisely what I'm looking for.


President Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, multiple outlets reported Wednesday. This would make the United States one of just three countries outside the historic pact to reduce planet-warming emissions.
Trump pledged during his campaign to "cancel" the deal, but delayed a decision for months amid a split in the administration on the issue. But in recent weeks, the camp opposing the accord apparently convinced the president to abandon it ― despite few political advantages and harsh economic and diplomatic consequences.
Under the terms of the deal, the U.S. cannot officially withdraw until November 2019. But even an announcement that the country is looking to leave the deal shows that the White House has no plans to meet earlier targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
That much was already clear. In March, Trump ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Clean Power Plan ― a sweeping regulation passed by former President Barack Obama to limit emissions from the utility sector, by far the country's biggest emitter. The policy was already stayed by the Supreme Court in February 2016 as a result of a lawsuit filed by former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is now Trump's head of the EPA. Without the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. wouldn't even come close to meeting its goals laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Trump vowed to jumpstart the U.S. economy by eliminating environmental regulations he blamed for holding back companies. In particular, he positioned himself as a staunch advocate for fossil fuels, nixing climate change funding from his proposed budget and scrapping rules that discourage pollution and boost renewable energy. But, somewhat ironically, major oil, gas and coal companies ― along with a plethora of other big corporations ― urged Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris Agreement.
Scott Pruitt is going to enact an ozone rule he'd planned to push off.


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Q: Bugs in iText.Kernel.Pdf.PdfOutline.AddOutline(PdfOutline outline)? I am not sure, if I have found bugs in PdfOutline or if it is my fault (verified versions <= 7.2.3., .NET-Api):
1. Adding a Outline with no destination
There is a PdfOutline toAdd which does not contain a Destination, so toAdd.GetDestination() is null.
If you add this outline to another Outline whatever (whatever.AddOutline(toAdd)), there will be a exception though having no Destination is within the pdf specifications. The same happens if one of toAdd's children has no destination.
2. Copying attributes
PdfOutline.AddOutline(PdfOutline toAdd) does not copy the attributes FLAG_ITALIC and FLAG_BOLD of toAdd.


A team of researchers from the Natural Sciences Museum of La Plata Province (Argentina), have uncovered the fossilised remains of a giant penguin at the start of a summer expedition to Antarctica. The fossils indicate that this particular type of flightless bird stood around 6 feet 5 inches tall (nearly two metres high), making it the largest penguin known to science.
Researcher Carolina Acosta, compared this new fossil find to the largest extant penguin species, the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) which can weigh up to forty-five kilogrammes and stands around four feet (1.2 metres) high.
Earlier this year, scientists from the Ashoro Museum of Palaeontology (Japan) uncovered the fossils of two new species of prehistoric penguin from the Waitaki region of New Zealand. One of these species Kairuku grebneffi, was estimated to have stood nearly five feet tall (1.5 metres) and may have weighed as much as 130 lbs (60 kilogrammes). At the time of this discovery, this species was declared the largest known in the fossil record, but this new discovery from Antarctica indicates an even larger prehistoric flightless bird.
"will allow for a more intensive and complex study of the ancestors of modern penguins".
There are plans to re-visit the location next summer when the weather in Antarctica would be more conducive to a scientific expedition. The fossils date to around thirty-four million years ago (Oligocene Epoch), at this time the world was warmer than it is today, however, changes were occurring in the Southern Ocean. The continent of Antarctica had finally split away from other landmasses that once made up the super-continent known as Gondwanaland. Antarctica was now roughly in the position it occupies today, sitting on the southern pole of the planet. Surrounded by water and with sun for little over half a year, the continent began to undergo a transformation and for the first time in hundreds of millions of years, ice sheets began to form and permanent ice could be found at the South Pole.
In its next expedition to Antarctica, during the region's summer, the team will seek additional fossils of the newly discovered species, as well as information about its anatomy and how the giant penguin might have moved. The palaeontologists are confident that this species had a similar diet to that of modern penguins, spearing fish and cephalopods with its seven inch long (18 centimetre) sharp beak.
Previous finds from prehistoric penguins indicated they did not sport the iconic black and white feathers the birds are known for today, but had reddish-brown and grey plumage.


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Saturday's News Links
[Reuters] Stock volatility: back with a bang and here to stay
[Bloomberg] What Shaped the Stock Market's $3 Trillion Trauma
[Bloomberg] China Warns It May Retaliate If U.S. Imposes Metal Tariffs
[Reuters] Exclusive: Indian banks may take more than $3 billion hit from PNB fraud - tax department
[Spiegel] German Politics Enters Era of Instability
[WSJ] Wall Street's Five CEOs Get Biggest Payday Since 2006
[FT] Higher bond yields fail to arrest an ever-weakening dollar
Weekly Commentary: Permanent Market Support Operations
U.S. stocks posted the strongest week of gains since 2013 (would have been 2011 if not for late-day selling). The S&P500 surged 4.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 5.3%. The small cap Russell 2000 rallied 4.4%. After closing last Friday at 29.06, the VIX settled back down to a still elevated 19.46. Foreign markets recovered as well. Germany's DAX rose 2.8%, and France's CAC 40 gained 4.0%. The Shanghai Composite was closed for the lunar new year. The dollar index was back under pressure this week, sinking 1.5% and providing a boost to commodities prices. Price instability abounds.
While stocks rather quickly recovered a chunk of recent losses, the same cannot be said for corporate bonds. Notably, investment-grade bonds (LQD) rallied little after recent declines.
February 16 – Bloomberg (Cecile Gutscher and Cormac Mullen): "Corporate bond funds succumbed to rate fears that have gripped stocks to Treasuries. Investors pulled $14.1 billion from debt funds, the fifth-largest stretch of redemptions in the week through Feb. 14, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, citing EPFR data. High-yield bonds lost $10.9 billion alone, the second highest outflow on record. As benchmark Treasury yields traded at a four-year high, it shook the foundations of a key support for risk assets -- low rates. 'Investors don't sell their cash bonds in a big way until they are forced to, which happens when the outflows start picking up more sustainably,' Morgan Stanley strategists led by Adam Richmond wrote…"
U.S. junk bond funds suffered outflows of $6.3 billion (from Lipper), the second highest ever. IShares' high-yield ETF saw outflows of $760 million. U.S. investment-grade bond funds had outflows of $790 million (Lipper), the first outflows since September. This was a big reversal from last week's $4.73 billion inflow. The iShares investment-grade ETF had outflows of $921 million, the "largest outflow in its 15-year history." Even muni funds posted outflows ($443 million), along with mortgage and loan funds.
A strong equities rally into option expiration – following a bout of market selling and hedging - is not out of the ordinary. Hedges put on over recent weeks were unwound, creating potent buying power for the recovery. Scores of systematic trading strategies that were aggressively selling into market weakness turned aggressive buyers into this week's advance.
I'm not much interested in sharing my guess as to where markets might head next week. It certainly wouldn't be surprising if this week's buyers panic subsides abruptly and selling reemerges. At the same time, I've seen enough of short squeeze and derivative melt-up dynamics to take them seriously. They have had a tendency of taking on a life of their own. I'm not, however, shying away from the view that recent developments mark a critical juncture in the markets – and for the world of finance more generally. Markets could find themselves in trouble in a hurry.
The objective for the CBB is to offer perspective. I believe the blowup of "short vol" and the revelation of how quickly the great bull market can succumb to illiquidity and losses have fundamentally altered the risk-taking and leveraging backdrop. The cost of hedging market risk, while down this week, has risen significantly. Treasuries have revealed themselves as an inadequate hedge against risk assets. Moreover, exceptionally high asset correlations experienced during the recent sharp selloff have illuminated the shortcomings of many so-called "diversified" strategies. There will be ebbs and flows, often wild and intimidating. Yet I believe de-risking/de-leveraging dynamics will gain momentum. Fragilities will be exposed.
I have serious issues with contemporary finance. Unique in history, the world operates with a financial "system" devoid of limits on either the quantity or quality of "money" and Credit. Unlike a gold standard (or other disciplined monetary regimes), there is no mechanism to contain the creation of new finance. As such, traditional supply/demand dynamics have little relevance in the pricing of finance. Today's contemporary financial apparatus – where central bankers largely dictate the price of Credit – lacks effective regulation of supply and demand. Importantly, the contemporary system fails to self-correct or adjust. Left unchecked, it feeds serial Bubbles and busts.
Early CBBs focused on the instability of this new world of "Wall Street finance." Unfettered finance, much of it directly targeted to asset markets, had created powerful asset inflation and Bubble Dynamics. Indeed, by the late-nineties the perilous instability of contemporary finance had become abundantly clear. One could point to "portfolio insurance" contributing to the '87 crash; the role of non-bank finance in late-eighties excess; the 92/93 bond/derivatives Bubble that burst in 1994; the 1995 Mexican collapse; the '97 Asian Tiger collapses; and the spectacular simultaneous 1998 Russia and Long-Term Capital Management debacles.
Somehow, there's never been a serious and sustained effort to analyze contemporary finance's shortcomings. Rather than contemplating evident deficiencies, each burst Bubble led immediately to whatever reflationary measures deemed necessary. Structural issues be damned. All along the way, few have been willing to admit the fundamental flaws inherent in various modern forms of risk intermediation. Rather than mitigate risk, structured finance and derivatives tend to distort, disguise and transfer myriad risks. Various risk intermediation mechanisms work to lower the cost of finance, in the process exacerbating Credit excess, risk-taking, speculation and leveraging.
Perhaps most momentous, the experiment in unconstrained finance spurred an experiment in economic structure. The U.S. economy was free to deindustrialize. With newfound access to unlimited finance and inflating asset prices, Americans were to indefinitely trade financial claims for endless cheap imports. The bane of "twin deficits" had been eradicated. Even more miraculously, the flood of finance the U.S. unleashed upon the world would, largely through foreign central banks, be recycled right back into booming American securities markets.
After the burst of the "tech" Bubble – and, importantly, the 2002 dislocation in the corporate debt market – the Fed panicked. Even more so than 1987, 1990 and 1998, the Fed feared "the scourge of deflation." Somehow, the Fed, Wall Street and others found solace in Bernanke's radical monetary ideas of "helicopter money" and the "government printing press." The Federal Reserve was willing to slash rates to one percent – and leave them pegged there in the face of several years of double-digit annual mortgage Credit growth.
Let's call it what it was: reckless. The Fed looked the other way from conspicuous financial and housing-related excess (as they have in the securities markets more recently). Why? Because they had specifically targeted mortgage Credit as their inflationary mechanism of choice. The Bubble was Untouchable.
The 2008 crisis marked the failure of a great financial experiment. Fannie, Freddie and GSE risk intermediation failed. Wall Street structured finance failed. Derivatives markets and Wall Street firms failed. Counterparties failed. Across the financial landscape, catastrophic flaws were exposed. In short, contemporary finance failed spectacularly.
The '08/'09 crisis should have provided an historic inflection point. The greatest upheaval in decades should have marked the beginning of an era of more stable finance – of sounder money and Credit and firmer economic underpinnings. It would have no doubt been an arduous process. Central bankers had other ideas.
I've never been tempted to give up on the analysis. For going on ten years, I've chronicled the greatest experiment in the history of central banking. Central bankers have adopted the most extreme rate, "money printing," and market manipulation measures ever. They have guaranteed abundant cheap (virtually free) finance for about a decade now. What was meant to be a temporary rescue of fragile private-sector, market-based finance morphed into history's greatest global Bubble.
The greatest flaw in central banker doctrine/strategy was to believe that after intervening temporarily with reflationary measures the system would stabilize and gravitate right back to normal operations. Central bankers reflated a deeply unsound financial structure, only exacerbating flaws and compounding contemporary finance's vulnerabilities. In particular, a decade of reflationary measures profoundly inflated risk intermediation distortions and fragilities.
The "Moneyness of Risk Assets" has seen Trillions flow into an untested ETF complex on the assumption that central bankers would ensure ETF holdings remained a safe and liquid store of value. Reflationary measures also incentivized Trillions to flow into sovereign debt, corporate Credit, structured finance and the emerging markets on the belief that central bankers would not tolerate another market crisis. Trillions have flowed into various derivative trading strategies on the view that central bankers would ensure liquid and continuous markets – no matter the degree of market excess.
The upshot has been market distortions and the accumulation of risks on an unprecedented scale. Fragilities have surfaced on occasion (i.e. "flash crashs"), spooking the central banker community sufficiently to ensure that "temporary" reflationary measures evolved into Permanent Market Support Operations. Central bankers had slipped fully into the markets' trap. Cautious measures expected to normalize policy over time only ensured that financial conditions loosened further - and global Bubble inflation accelerated.
Along the way, Permanent Market Support Operations changed the game – in global finance as well as throughout economies. Everyone was free to assume more market risk – savers, investors, pension funds and institutions, and the leveraged speculator community. Corporate management could issue more debt and buy back more stock. Easy "money" ensured an easy M&A boom. It took time, but animal spirits in the Financial Sphere eventually manifested in the Real Economy Sphere.
The most aggressive companies, managers, entrepreneurs and swindlers all enjoyed the greatest success. Seemingly any clever idea could attract funding. With finance virtually unlimited and free, almost any investment could be viewed as having merit irrespective of prospects for economic returns. There was abundant "money" to be thrown at everything – the cloud, the Internet of things, AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, all things tech, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy, all things media and so on. It became New Paradigm 2.0, with the earlier nineties version now such a triviality.
Things just got too crazy. Central bankers were much too complacent as Bubble Dynamics gathered powerful momentum. Booming asset inflation and 4% unemployment weren't enough to convince the Fed it was time to tighten up the reins. Meanwhile, the ECB and BOJ clung stubbornly to negative rates and massive QE programs. Chinese Credit went nuts. Awash in international flows, EM just kept borrowing. Through it all, wealth disparities only worsened, fueling in the U.S. a populist movement and anti-establishment revolt that placed the Trump administration in power. Despite a massive accumulation of debt and ongoing large deficits – not to mention increasingly overheated late-cycle economic dynamics - the Republicans pushed through historic tax cuts. Next on the President's agenda: tariffs and trade battles.
Everyone became so transfixed by daily stock market records, historically low volatility and the easiest conditions imaginable throughout corporate Credit. It was easy to ignore pressures percolating on the inflation front. And it became just as easy to disregard the possibility that central bankers might actually raise rates to the point of tightening financial conditions. Heightened uncertainty began to manifest in currency market volatility. Meanwhile, excesses were mounting in the securities markets on a daily basis – including incredible flows into perceived safe and liquid ETFs, rank speculation, "short vol," derivatives and leverage.
For the most part during this extraordinary cycle, Monetary Disorder has remained conveniently contained within the securities and asset markets, seemingly staying within the purview of global central bank policymaking. Rather suddenly, however, markets are beginning to realize there are unfolding risks not easily resolved by monetary stimulus. Deficit spending has become completely unhinged, while inflation is gaining sufficient momentum to garner concern. As such, central bankers may feel compelled to actually tighten financial conditions. Bond markets are on edge, commencing a long-overdue price adjustment. At the minimum, the Fed and others will likely be less hurried when coming to the defense of unstable equities markets.
The bulls see this week's quick stock market recovery as confirmation of sound underlying fundamentals. The selloff was a technical market glitch completely detached from the reality of booming corporate earnings, robust economic growth and extraordinary prospects.
I see this week's big market rally as confirmation of the Bubble thesis. Markets have lost the capacity to self-adjust and correct. Derivatives and speculation rule the markets. Option expiration week certainly provides fertile ground for short squeezes and the crushing of put holders. But it does raise the important question of whether markets at this point can correct without dislocating to the downside. I have serious doubts. The quick recovery has markets again dismissing mounting risks. Perhaps it will also keep the Fed thinking economic risks are tilted to the upside – that they need to ignore market volatility and stay focused on normalization.
My view is that normalization is impossible. Extended global market Bubbles are too fragile to endure a tightening of financial conditions. At the same time, sustaining Bubbles has become perilous. Especially in the U.S., with deficits and a weak currency as far as the eye can see, the risks of allowing inflation to gain a foothold are significant. For the first time in a while, there is pressure on the Fed to actually tighten financial conditions. This places the great central bank experiment at risk. Bubbles don't work in reverse.
The world is changing. These flows out of corporate debt ETFs are a significant development – another step toward "Risk Off." Speculative and hedging dynamics that hit equities hold potential to spark major dislocation and illiquidity in corporate Credit. For further evidence of change, look no further than a Tuesday headline from the Wall Street Journal: "White House Considering Cleveland Fed President Mester for Fed's No. 2 Job." A central banker I admire considered for a top Fed post? Is this part of a changing of the guard at our central bank, or perhaps administration officials recognize that with years of huge deficits looming on the horizon, along with dollar vulnerability, the Fed will soon be in need of some inflation-fighting credentials.
For the Week:
The S&P500 rallied 4.3% (up 2.2% y-t-d), and the Dow recovered 4.3% (up 2.0%). The Utilities gained 2.8% (down 5.7%). The Banks jumped 5.1% (up 6.6%), and the Broker/Dealers rose 4.8% (up 6.8%). The Transports increased 3.6% (down 1.0%). The S&P 400 Midcaps rallied 4.4% (unchanged), and the small cap Russell 2000 recovered 4.4% (up 0.5%). The Nasdaq100 surged 5.6% (up 5.9%).The Semiconductors rose 5.0% (up 5.2%). The Biotechs jumped 6.0% (up 11.1%). With bullion surging $31, the HUI gold index rallied 6.0% (down 3.8%).
Three-month Treasury bill rates ended the week at 1.56%. Two-year government yields surged 12 bps to 2.12% (up 31bps y-t-d). Five-year T-note yields gained nine bps to 2.63% (up 42bps). Ten-year Treasury yields added two bps to 2.88% (up 47bps). Long bond yields slipped three bps to 3.13% (up 39bps).
Greek 10-year yields jumped 16 bps to 4.24% (up 17bps y-t-d). Ten-year Portuguese yields fell 10 bps to 2.01% (up 6bps). Italian 10-year yields declined six bps to 1.99% (down 3bps). Spain's 10-year yields dipped two bps to 1.46% (down 11bps). German bund yields fell four bps to 0.71% (up 28bps). French yields declined three bps to 0.95% (up 17bps). The French to German 10-year bond spread widened one to 24 bps. U.K. 10-year gilt yields added a basis point to 1.58% (up 39bps). U.K.'s FTSE equities index rallied 2.9% (down 5.1%).
Japan's Nikkei 225 equities index increased 1.6% (down 4.6% y-t-d). Japanese 10-year "JGB" yields declined one basis point to 0.06% (up 1bp). France's CAC40 recovered 4.0% (down 0.6%). The German DAX equities index rallied 2.8% (down 3.6%). Spain's IBEX 35 equities index gained 2.0% (down 2.1%). Italy's FTSE MIB index jumped 2.8% (up 4.3%). EM markets were mostly higher. Brazil's Bovespa index surged 4.5% (up 10.6%), and Mexico's Bolsa rose 2.3% (down 1.0%). South Korea's Kospi index bounced 2.5% (down 1.9%). India's Sensex equities index was little changed (down 0.1%). China's Shanghai Exchange rose 2.2% (down 3.3%). Turkey's Borsa Istanbul National 100 index jumped 2.6% (up 1.0%). Russia's MICEX equities index advanced 2.6% (up 6.9%).
Junk bond mutual funds saw hefty outflows of $6.036 billion (from Lipper).
Freddie Mac 30-year fixed mortgage rates rose six bps to a near four-year high 4.38% (up 23bps y-o-y). Fifteen-year rates jumped seven bps to 3.84% (up 49bps). Five-year hybrid ARM rates gained six bps to 3.63% (up 45bps). Bankrate's survey of jumbo mortgage borrowing costs had 30-yr fixed rates down four bps to 4.55% (up 21bps).
Federal Reserve Credit last week increased $5.6bn to $4.385 TN. Over the past year, Fed Credit contracted $39.4bn, or 0.9%. Fed Credit inflated $1.574 TN, or 56%, over the past 276 weeks. Elsewhere, Fed holdings for foreign owners of Treasury, Agency Debt gained $11.1bn last week to $3.399 TN. "Custody holdings" were up $230bn y-o-y, or 7.2%.
M2 (narrow) "money" supply gained $7.9bn last week to a record $13.858 TN. "Narrow money" expanded $578bn, or 4.3%, over the past year. For the week, Currency slipped $1.2bn. Total Checkable Deposits declined $3.5bn, while savings Deposits rose $14.9bn. Small Time Deposits were little changed. Retail Money Funds dipped $2.2bn.
Total money market fund assets added $2.0bn to $2.829 TN. Money Funds gained $154bn y-o-y, or 5.8%.
Total Commercial Paper fell $12.2bn to $1.118 TN. CP gained $152bn y-o-y, or 15.8%.
Currency Watch:
The U.S. dollar index dropped 1.5% to 89.10 (down 3.3% y-o-y). For the week on the upside, the South African rand increased 3.4%, the Japanese yen 2.4%, the Norwegian krone 2.3%, the Brazilian real 2.2%, the New Zealand dollar 1.8%, the British pound 1.4%, the Swedish krona 1.4%, the South Korean won 1.4%, the Singapore dollar 1.3%, the euro 1.3%, the Swiss franc 1.3%, the Australian dollar 1.2%, the Mexican peso 1.0% and the Canadian dollar 0.2%. The Chinese renminbi declined 0.6% versus the dollar this week (up 2.61% y-t-d).
Commodities Watch:
The Goldman Sachs Commodities Index rallied 3.5% (up 0.3% y-t-d). Spot Gold jumped 2.4% to $1,347 (up 3.4%). Silver recovered 3.6% to $16.71 (down 2.5%). Crude rallied $2.48 to $61.68 (up 2%). Gasoline jumped 3.0% (down 2.5%), while Natural Gas declined 1.0% (down 13%). Copper surged 7.1% (down 1%). Wheat jumped 5.0% (up 10%). Corn rose 3.6% (up 7%).
Market Dislocation Watch:
February 11 – Bloomberg (Rachel Evans): "You just can't keep a good trade down. The ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures fund, which lost more than 80% of its value on Feb. 6, took in the most cash on record last week. The product, which goes by the ticker SVXY, was the fifth-most popular exchange-traded fund in the U.S., absorbing more than $500 million…"
February 12 – Bloomberg (Luke Kawa): "Brave volatility traders are betting that lightning won't strike twice. Two of the three most active options tied to the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures exchange-traded note (VXX) on Monday were way out-of-the-money calls. The major explosion of open interest in these options occurred in transactions that took place closer to the bid than to the ask price, which implies that this was motivated selling rather than fresh bets on another volatility spike. Volatility sellers are likely emboldened by signs the market's fever is breaking. The Cboe Volatility Index… has roughly halved from last week's peak, and U.S. stocks are up nearly 5% from their Feb. 9 lows."
February 11 – Bloomberg (Luke Kawa and Joanna Ossinger): "Investors actively abandoned the world's biggest passive fund during the onset of market mayhem. The SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (ticker SPY) suffered a record $23.6 billion in outflows last week amid the worst momentum swing in history for the underlying U.S. equity benchmark. Outflows amounted to 8% of the fund's total assets at the start of the week, a rate of withdrawals not seen since August 2010."
February 11 – Wall Street Journal (Alistair Gray and Robin Wigglesworth): "Wall Street is pointing the finger at insurance companies as an unlikely but pivotal source of the turbulence that wiped trillions of dollars off stock market values in recent days. While complex volatility-linked funds and algorithmic traders have been widely blamed for the wild price swings, strategists and investors said a significant portion of the selling could be traced to variable annuities, a popular tax-advantaged insurance-company product that offers customers guaranteed returns. US life insurers suffered losses on variable annuities in the financial crisis. Since then, insurers have responded by marketing variable annuities that put customers' money into 'managed volatility' funds. These vehicles, which aim to produce steadier returns, shed risky assets when volatility spikes."
February 12 – Wall Street Journal (Asjylyn Loder and Dave Michaels): "The recent implosion of two exchange-traded products is renewing questions about the impact of fast-growing passive funds on the markets they are meant to track. While exchange-traded funds have lowered the cost of investing and given individuals access to strategies once reserved for hedge funds and multibillion-dollar pensions, the $5 trillion global industry has ventured into complex strategies, sometimes with disastrous results. The latest example came on the evening of Feb. 5, as ETPs that bet against Wall Street's fear gauge lost more than 80% of their value. The strategy has been a popular moneymaker in recent years as stocks marched steadily higher, keeping the Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, at near-record lows."
Trump Administration Watch:
February 13 – Bloomberg (Steven T. Dennis): "President Donald Trump's budget blueprint doubles the deficits he forecast a year ago with little expectation they'll shrink anytime soon. As a result, the $20 trillion federal debt that Trump railed against as a candidate is projected to balloon to $30 trillion a decade from now. And that's despite the healthy dose of economic optimism in Monday's budget: 3% growth, low inflation, low interest rates and low unemployment each year. It also assumes trillions in spending cuts Congress has already rejected… The prospect of encroaching inflation and higher interest rates contributed to the biggest stock market rout in two years. Investors who spent January celebrating Trump's tax package with the biggest rally since 1997 watched as those gains dissolved, leaving the S&P 500 back where it was in November."
February 12 – Politico (Theodoric Meyer): "Deficit spending is officially back in style, leaving Washington's professional deficit scolds wondering how they'll manage to persuade lawmakers to care about red ink again. The one-two punch of Republicans' recent tax cuts and the bipartisan, two-year budget deal Congress passed last week could boost the next fiscal year's deficit — the difference between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes — to more than $1 trillion, according to projections. That's caused a mixture of alarm and depression among the think tanks and foundations that have spent years pushing Congress to shrink the annual deficits."
February 13 – Reuters (Roberta Rampton and David Lawder): "U.S. President Donald Trump said… he was considering a range of options to address steel and aluminum imports that he said were unfairly hurting U.S. producers, including tariffs and quotas. Trump's comments - his strongest signal in months that he will take at least some action to restrict imports of the two metals - came in a meeting with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives… Some of the lawmakers urged him to act decisively to save steel and aluminum plants in their states, but others urged caution because higher prices would hurt downstream manufacturers that consume steel and aluminum."
February 14 – Bloomberg (Joe Light): "Fannie Mae will request an infusion of taxpayer money for the first time since 2012 because of an unintended but anticipated side effect of the corporate tax cut signed into law in December. The mortgage-finance company… said it will need to draw $3.7 billion from the U.S. Treasury in March to keep its net worth from going negative. The deficit was driven by a $6.5 billion loss in the fourth quarter, which came as a result of a drop in the value of assets Fannie can use to offset taxes. The assets became less valuable when Congress cut the corporate tax rate, resulting in a $9.9 billion hit."
February 13 – Reuters (Katanga Johnson and Susan Cornwell): "The White House budget chief said… that, if he were still a member of Congress, he 'probably' would vote against a deficit-financed budget plan he and Trump are proposing. At a U.S. Senate panel hearing where he defended the administration's new $4.4-trillion, fiscal 2019 spending plan, Mick Mulvaney was asked if he would vote for it, if he were still a lawmaker… 'I probably would have found enough shortcomings in this to vote against it,' said Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB)…"
U.S. Bubble Watch:
February 13 – Financial Times (Demetri Sevastopulo): "Dan Coats, the top US intelligence official, urged Congress to tackle the ballooning national debt, saying it posed a 'dire threat' to economic and national security. In presenting Congress with the US intelligence community's annual global threat assessment — which ranged from the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula to Russian interference in US elections — Mr Coats called for action to prevent a 'fiscal crisis . . . that truly undermines our ability to ensure our national security'. 'The failure to address our long-term fiscal situation has increased the national debt to over $20tn,' Mr Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate intelligence committee. 'This situation is unsustainable . . . and represents a dire threat to our economic and national security.' His warning came a day after President Donald Trump released his budget proposal for fiscal 2019, which jettisoned a pledge from a year ago to eliminate the budget deficit over 10 years."
February 15 – Bloomberg (Katia Dmitrieva): "Three measures of price pressures for American businesses showed they're facing higher production costs, adding to evidence that inflation is creeping up in the U.S. economy. The Empire State Manufacturing prices-paid index increased 12.4 points to 48.6 in February, the highest level since 2012… A separate index from the Philadelphia Fed showed prices paid in that region also surging in February, reaching the highest since May 2011… In Washington, …U.S. wholesale prices rose in January on costs of energy and hospital services. The producer-price index increased 0.4% from the prior month…"
February 13 – Bloomberg (Prashant Gopal): "Home prices jumped to all-time highs in almost two-thirds of U.S. cities in the fourth quarter as buyers battled for a record-low supply of listings. Prices for single-family homes, which climbed 5.3% from a year earlier nationally, reached a peak in 64% of metropolitan areas measured, the National Association of Realtors said... Of the 177 regions in the group's survey, 15% had double-digit price growth, up from 11% in the third quarter… While prices jumped 48% since 2011, incomes have climbed only 15%, putting purchases out of reach for many would-be buyers."
February 16 – Reuters: "U.S. import prices rose more than expected in January as the cost of imported petroleum and a range of other goods increased, which could boost inflation in the coming months. …Import prices jumped 1.0% last month after an upwardly revised 0.2% rise in December.. In the 12 months through January, import prices increased 3.6%, the largest advance since April 2017, quickening from a 3.2% rise in December."
February 13 – CNBC (Tae Kim): "The American consumer is loading up on debt. Total household debt rose by $193 billion to an all-time high of $13.15 trillion at year-end 2017 from the previous quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Center for Microeconomic Data report… Mortgage debt balances rose the most in the December quarter rising by $139 billion to $8.88 trillion from the previous quarter. Credit card debt had the second largest increase of $26 billion to a total of $834 billion. The report said it was fifth consecutive year of annual household debt growth with increases in the mortgage, student, auto and credit card categories."
February 13 – Bloomberg (Luzi-Ann Javier): "Optimism among small companies in the U.S. rose more than forecast in January, fueled by a record number of owners who said now was a good time to expand, according to a National Federation of Independent Business survey… Overall index rose by 2 points to 106.9 (est. 105.3), close to November's 107.5 reading that was highest in monthly data to 1986."
February 12 – Bloomberg (Matthew Boesler): "U.S. consumers said they expected to see the fastest wage growth in several years when polled in January, according to a monthly Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey. Consumers polled expected earnings to rise 2.73% in the coming year, the most since data collection began in 2013, according to results of the New York Fed's Survey of Consumer Expectation... January was only the third month in the survey's 56-month history in which expected wage growth topped expected consumer price inflation, which fell slightly, to 2.71%."
February 13 – New York Times (Conor Dougherty): "The United States is on track to achieve the second-longest economic expansion in its history. Unemployment is at a 17-year low. And California's state budget has a multibillion-dollar surplus. So why is its longtime governor, Jerry Brown, issuing prophecies of doom? 'What's out there is darkness, uncertainty, decline and recession,' Mr. Brown said recently after presenting his final budget to legislators. California has accounted for about 20% of the nation's economic growth since 2010… nBut Mr. Brown, in his final year in office, has raised the question on the minds of those paid to think about the economy: How long can this last? For California and the nation, there is a long list of things that could go wrong. A surging budget deficit could stoke higher interest rates. And if the recent upheaval in stocks signals a longer-term decline, it would hurt California in particular because its budget relies heavily on high earners whose incomes rise and fall with the market… In 2009, as the last recession took hold, California state revenue fell 19%, versus 8% for state revenues nationwide, according to Moody's Analytics."
February 14 – Bloomberg (Sho Chandra): "U.S. retail sales unexpectedly declined in January and December receipts were revised lower, indicating consumer demand in the first quarter may cool… Overall sales fell 0.3% (est. 0.2% gain), the most since February 2017, after little change in prior month (prev. 0.4% increase). Purchases at automobile dealers dropped 1.3%, the most since August."
February 13 – Wall Street Journal (Gunjan Banerji): "A U.S. regulator is looking into whether prices linked to the stock market's widely watched 'fear index' have been manipulated, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, is derived from S&P 500 options prices. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is scrutinizing whether traders placed bets on S&P 500 options to influence prices for VIX futures… Separately, a letter from a law firm Monday representing an unidentified client urged U.S. regulators to investigate VIX manipulation, claiming it has cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each month."
Federal Reserve Watch:
February 14 – CNBC (Jeff Cox): "U.S. consumer prices rose considerably more than expected in January, fueling fears that inflation is about to turn dangerously higher. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5% last month against projections of a 0.3% increase… Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the index was up 0.3% against estimates of 0.2%. The report indicated that price pressures were 'broad-based,' with rises in gasoline, shelter, clothing, medical care and food. Markets reacted sharply to the news."
February 13 – Financial Times (Demetri Sevastopulo, Sam Fleming and Robin Wigglesworth): "The White House is considering appointing Loretta Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, as vice-chair of the US Federal Reserve's board of governors. One person familiar with the selection process for the powerful central banking role said White House officials had discussed the job with Ms Mester and were 'impressed' with her. However, the person stressed that there was currently no frontrunner for the position…"
February 13 – Reuters (Howard Schneider): "The recent stock market sell-off and jump in volatility will not damage the economy's overall strong prospects, Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester said… in warning against any overreaction to the turbulence in financial markets. 'While a deeper and more persistent drop in equity markets could dash confidence and lead to a pullback in risk-taking and spending, the movements we have seen are far away from this scenario,' Mester said of a market rout…"
February 14 – Wall Street Journal (Justin Lahart): "With the economy throwing off more heat, the biggest risk for the Federal Reserve is that it falls behind on raising interest rates. And if investors suffer as a result? So be it. Inflation picked up again last month. The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that consumer prices rose 0.5% in January from December, putting them 2.1% above their year-earlier level. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.3% for a 1.8% gain on the year. Both measures were stronger than economists expected."
China Watch:
February 12 – Reuters (Kevin Yao, Fang Cheng): "China's banks extended a record 2.9 trillion yuan ($458.3bn) in new yuan loans in January, blowing past expectations and nearly five times the previous month as policymakers aim to sustain solid economic growth while reining in debt risks. While Chinese banks tend to front-load loans early in the year to get higher-quality customers and win market share, the lofty figure was even higher than the most bullish forecast… Net new loans surpassed the previous record of 2.51 trillion yuan in January 2016, which is likely to support growth not only in China but may underpin liquidity globally as major Western central banks begin to withdraw stimulus… Corporate loans surged to 1.78 trillion yuan from 243.2 billion yuan in December, while household loans rose to 901.6 billion yuan in January from 329.4 billion yuan in December…"
February 11 – Wall Street Journal (Manju Dalal, Shen Hong and Chuin-Wei Yap): "An engine of consumer loan growth in China is slowing. But that might not be such a bad thing, at least for regulators and market participants that have fretted about a rise in risky lending practices over the past year. China's market for asset-backed securities—which bundle up car loans, mortgages, consumer loans and other receivables into bondlike products—surged in 2017, led by issuers including the financial affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and other nonbank lenders. Total issuance of such instruments, which are mostly denominated in yuan, jumped 90% to over $220 billion last year from 2016, according to S&P Global."
February 13 – Bloomberg (Yuko Takeo and Yoshiaki Nohara): "Debt-laden Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. had its credit assessment cut for the second time in less than three months by S&P Global Ratings, which cited significant debt maturities amid deteriorating liquidity. Separately, some HNA directors and top executives have purchased offshore dollar bonds guaranteed by the group… The company is in a 'very healthy' financial position, it said. S&P lowered HNA's credit profile to ccc+ from b."
February 12 – Bloomberg: "HNA Group Co., the once-voracious hunter of global trophy assets, is seeking to sell more than $6 billion in properties worldwide as pressure intensifies for the Chinese conglomerate to speed up disposals so it can repay its debts. The group… said it agreed to sell two plots of land in Hong Kong it bought less than a year ago for HK$16 billion ($2 billion) to the city's second-richest man. HNA is also said to have been in talks to sell a pair of office buildings in London's Canary Wharf district it bought for more than $500 million and offering a raft of properties in the U.S. valued at about $4 billion."
February 11 – Bloomberg: "Billionaire Hui Ka Yan's China Evergrande Group, the nation's number three by sales last year, has started selling homes cheap. A 12% discount will apply to many apartments ahead of a week-long Chinese New Year holiday… Sweeteners include down-payments by installment. The company may see headwinds for the property market amid local governments' stringent home-buying curbs and the potential for liquidity to tighten. One analyst's theory: this is a bid to please a government determined to cool housing prices, ahead of a long-standing plan to list a property unit on the mainland."
February 11 – Wall Street Journal (Scott Patterson and Russell Gold): "Miners push bicycles piled high with bags of a grayish-blue ore along a dusty road to a makeshift market. There, they line up at wholesalers with nicknames such as Crazy Jack and Boss Lee. Most of the buyers are Chinese. Those buyers then sell to Chinese companies that ship the bags, filled with cobalt, to China for processing into rechargeable, lithium-ion batteries that power laptops and smartphones and electric cars. There is a world-wide race to lock up the supply chain for cobalt, which will likely be in even greater demand as electric-car production rises. So far, China is way ahead."
Central Bank Watch:
February 11 – Reuters (John Miller): "The European Central Bank is concerned that the United States is exerting 'political influence' on exchange rates and will make this a theme at upcoming G20 meetings, ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny said… 'We in the ECB are certainly concerned about attempts by the United States to politically influence the exchange rate,' Nowotny told Austrian broadcaster ORF. 'That was a theme of economic discussions in Davos, where the ECB addressed this, and it will certainly be a theme at the upcoming G20 summit.'"
Global Bubble Watch:
February 12 – Bloomberg (Cecile Gutscher): "Societe Generale SA is telling yield-seeking bond investors to give up the ghost: they can no longer bank on dormant inflation underpinning risk bets, from credit to emerging markets to long-dated government debt. 'The bear market in rates has started, and with it credit, and eventually emerging markets, should both come under pressure,' strategists led by Brigitte Richard-Hidden wrote… 'There has been a regime shift in the market, which implies further increases in yields.'"
February 10 – Financial Times (Chris Flood): "Investors ploughed more than $100bn in new cash into exchange traded funds in January, a record monthly inflow that helped drive assets held in ETFs globally above the $5tn mark for the first time. The surge in January follows four consecutive years of record breaking inflows into ETFs, a tectonic shift that is sending shockwaves across the entire asset management industry… Net new inflows into exchange traded funds and products reached $105.7bn in January, according to… ETFGI…"
February 13 – Financial Times (Joe Rennison and Eric Platt): "The premium investors are demanding to own loans that are packaged into bonds has tumbled to the lowest since the financial crisis, in a sign that the market has not been roiled by the return of volatility in stocks. The market for collateralised debt obligations, as the securities are known, has boomed over the past two years as the juicier yields they offer draws buyers. That, in turn, has driven the issuance of collateralised loan obligations that this year has already eclipsed the record pace of 2017. Barings… priced a $517m CLO — composed of loans made to weaker corporate borrowers — at the lowest spread over a benchmark interest rate since 2008. The safest triple A part of the CLO priced at just 99 bps above Libor…"
February 11 – Reuters (Tom Arnold and Alexander Cornwell): "Sharp swings in global financial markets in the past few days are not worrying since economic growth is strong but reforms are still needed to avert future crises, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said… 'I'm reasonably optimistic because of the landscape we have at the moment. But we cannot sit back and wait for growth to continue as normal,' she said…"
Fixed-Income Bubble Watch:'
February 13 – Wall Street Journal (Daniel Kruger and Michael S. Derby): "Bond investors are grappling with concerns that the U.S. government's decisions to cut taxes and increase spending are stoking an economy that doesn't need a boost, at the expense of long-term financial health. Selling in government bonds that began after the passage of tax cuts and accelerated amid fears of a pickup in inflation has darkened investors' outlook in recent weeks. Even as the government boosts its borrowing, the Federal Reserve has stepped away from bond purchases and is now shrinking its holdings, raising worries about the appetite from private investors who will need to make up the difference. Because the 10-year Treasury note is a bedrock of global financial markets, rising yields… can lift borrowing costs, affecting everything from state and local governments to mortgages, credit cards, and corporate loans."
February 12 – Bloomberg (Netty Idayu Ismail): "Treasury 10-year yields will rise to as high as 3.5% in the next six months as the market prices in a steeper pace of Federal Reserve tightening, according to Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The U.S. central bank will probably raise interest rates four times this year, defying the consensus for around three, said Philip Moffitt, Asia-Pacific head of fixed income…, which oversees more than $1 trillion. Yields will also increase as the Fed trims the holdings of Treasuries it purchased through quantitative easing, he said. 'As QE gets tapered through this year and into next year, we've got a big swing in the supply duration coming,' Moffitt said… 'It's going to put upward pressure on yields. I would think that 3.5% is not a very brave forecast.'"
February 15 – Bloomberg (Sid Verma): "As stocks boogied to the risk-on beat Wednesday, investors in the world's third-largest fixed-income exchange-traded fund left the party at a frenetic pace. The iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond exchange-traded fund (LQD) was hit by a record $921 million outflow, the largest daily redemption since its 2002 inception… At 2.7%, it represents the largest post-crisis withdrawal as a share of total assets at the start of the session for the high-grade, dollar-denominated fund. It now manages $33 billion."
February 13 – CNBC (Jeff Cox): "Fund managers have sliced their bond allocations to the lowest level in 20 years as fears grow that the sector poses the biggest threat to markets. Along with reducing their fixed income exposure, 60% of professional investors also say inflation and troubles overall in the bond market pose the biggest threat of a 'cross-asset crash,' according to the February Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey. Respondents say they've reduced their bond portfolios to a net 69% underweight, the lowest since the survey began two decades ago."
February 14 – Bloomberg (Danielle Moran): "Bankers say bad loans are made in good times, and the $3.8 trillion municipal-bond market may be no exception. High demand from investors, a dwindling supply of new deals, and historically low yield penalties on the riskiest bonds has created an borrower's market, Municipal Market Analytics analysts Matt Fabian and Lisa Washburn wrote… This atmosphere has produced a rise in issuance in sectors most 'prone to impairment,' they said. 'Over recent years the mix of defaults has become more diversified than it was previously,' Washburn wrote. Before the 2008 credit crisis, nearly all defaults were concentrated in the healthcare and housing sectors. Now that trend is expanding into utility districts and tax-based issues, typically known as safe sectors, according to the firm."
Europe Watch:
February 14 – Reuters (Jan Strupczewski): "Euro zone industrial production jumped more than expected in December…, underlining the fastest economic growth rate in a decade that economists expect to continue in 2018. Eurostat said industrial production in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 0.4% month-on-month for a 5.2% year-on-year gain."
February 13 – Financial Times (Robert Smith): "When European bond investors tired of private equity firms and the law firms they employ watering down key protections in junk-rated debt, they turned to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. Influential asset managers such as AllianceBernstein and Schroders wrote a public letter to the board of AFME's high-yield division — the closest thing the $400bn European junk bond market has to an industry trade body — expressing their dismay. These investor members of AFME took particular aim at the deteriorating quality of covenants — important clauses that restrict companies from taking reckless actions such as raising too much debt. That was in 2015. Today the quality of these covenants… is even worse. Asset managers such as pension funds are worried that whittling away these safeguards will leave them more exposed to losses when the credit cycle turns."
Japan Watch:
February 14 – Financial Times (Robin Harding): "The yen's surge to ¥106.5 against the dollar — a 15-month high — does not require market intervention, said Japan's finance minister, as nerves grow about the currency's sharp appreciation this year. Speaking to the budget committee of the Diet's lower house, Taro Aso said the 'yen isn't rising or falling abruptly' in a way that would justify the finance ministry stepping in and selling the currency. Against a backdrop of strong stock markets and solid global growth, Mr Aso's remarks suggest the finance ministry does not yet fear a hit to Japan's economy from the rising currency. His words may encourage markets to push the yen higher."
February 13 – Financial Times (Hudson Lockett): "Japan's economy has recorded eight consecutive quarters of economic growth — its longest streak for 28 years — despite the pace of expansion slowing in the final three months of 2017. A preliminary reading on gross domestic product from the Cabinet Office reported annualised growth of 0.5% in the fourth quarter, falling from a pace of 2.5% in the third quarter… However, consumption and business investment were both strong, suggesting that Japan's economic cycle was not on the wane, with robust expansion set to continue in 2018. The eight quarters of growth mark Japan's longest streak since a 12-quarter stretch that ended in 1989."
EM Bubble Watch:
February 13 – Financial Times (Robert Smith): "Should investors worry about debt in emerging markets? The past week's global market sell-off, and the rise in US interest rates that lies behind it, suggest they should at least keep a very close eye… One of the selling points of EMs during the rally in their stocks and bonds over the past two years has been the improvement in their macroeconomic fundamentals… Indeed, there is much less EM debt today than there was in the crisis years of the 1980s and 1990s. But since the global financial crisis of 2008-09, EM debts have been on the rise again. In dollar terms, in the IIF's 21 countries, they quintupled from $12tn in March 2005 to $60tn in September last year. In relation to gross domestic product, they rose from 146% to 217%. Significantly, as the chart shows, the amount of debt owed in foreign currencies has also risen over the same period, both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP."
Leveraged Speculation Watch:
February 13 – Bloomberg (Luzi-Ann Javier): "Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio boosted his holdings in the two largest gold-backed ETFs last quarter before prices of the metal capped the biggest annual gain in seven years. As of the end of December, Dalio's Bridgewater Associates, the world's biggest hedge fund, raised its stake in SPDR Gold Shares, its fifth-largest holding, by 14,091 shares to 3.91 million shares…"
Geopolitical Watch:
February 12 – Bloomberg (Gregory White): "The war in Syria is threatening to embroil the major powers in direct conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin may have declared victory in his Syrian campaign two months ago, but… a strike by U.S.-led coalition forces in the east of Syria last week killed as many as 200 troops working for Russian military contractors. The raid was likely the first such deadly conflict between the former Cold War rivals since the Vietnam War, according to Russian experts. Both sides so far have tried to keep the details secret to avoid escalating an already volatile situation. Just days later, Israel downed an Iranian drone and struck targets in Syria, raising the ante in its efforts to drive forces backed by Tehran away from its border. Following those strikes, Putin urged 'avoiding any steps that could lead to a new round of confrontation.'"
February 11 – Wall Street Journal (Rory Jones): "The loss of an Israeli military jet to Syrian fire over the weekend has raised the chances of a more forceful response from Israel to deter Iranian military expansion across its border, which could open up another front line in war-torn Syria. The clash began Saturday morning after Israel said it intercepted an Iranian drone that had infiltrated its airspace from Syria. Israel responded that day with airstrikes on Syrian military positions, and Syria shot down one of the Israeli warplanes, which crashed in Israeli territory. Israel then carried out more-extensive airstrikes on Saturday deep inside Syria targeting what its military said were Syrian and Iranian military positions."
February 15 – Wall Street Journal (Yaroslav Trofimov): "Here's what happened in Syria over the past week or so. Try to make out who's whose friend—and who's whose foe. The Russian-backed Syrian regime gave free passage through its territory to American-backed Kurdish militias so they could fight against America's NATO ally Turkey. The Syrian regime at the same time attacked these American-backed Kurdish militias in another part of the country, triggering U.S. strikes that killed more than 100 Syrian troops and a significant number of Russian military contractors. In yet another part of Syria, Turkey threatened to attack American troops embedded with these Kurdish forces, prompting a counterwarning of an American military response."
February 11 – Reuters (Parisa Hafezi): "Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied on Sunday to mark the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, denouncing the United States and Israel as oppressors. President Hassan Rouhani, addressing flag-waving crowds on central Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square, made no specific reference to Israel's air strikes in Syria on Saturday which it said were aimed at air defense and Iranian targets. But he told the crowd: 'They (U.S. and Israel) wanted to create tension in the region ... they wanted to divide Iraq, Syria ... They wanted to create long-term chaos in Lebanon but ... but with our help their policies failed.'"
Weekly Commentary: Permanent Market Support Opera...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Florida's natural beauty takes many forms, depending where that beauty is located. It's a big state! But some of its most striking landscapes aren't found near its beaches. And yes, we know how gorgeous those are. We at ICI Homes live here too.
For proof, go west — and inland — by a couple hours from Florida's northeast Atlantic Coast beaches. Here, you'll find the city of Gainesville smack dab in the midst of northern Central Florida and Alachua County. This is Gator country, home to the University of Florida and its namesake athletic teams.
Have you seen the Madeline at Oakmont?


text:
Government and Commercial Reimbursement
Neil P. Di Spirito Joins Epstein Becker Green, Further Strengthens Firm's FDA Capabilities
Washington, DC (August 16, 2018) – Epstein Becker Green (EBG) is pleased to announce that Neil P. Di Spirito, an attorney with more than two decades of experience advising pharmaceutical, medical device, biologic, and life sciences clients on compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, has joined as a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the District of Columbia and Florida.
Mr. Di Spirito's practice focuses on providing regulatory and enforcement counsel to companies of all sizes on products regulated by the FDA. He has litigated against the FDA and negotiated with its Office of General Counsel. He also handles licensing, labeling issues, managed care issues, FDA enforcement defense and State of Florida enforcement matters, civil seizure claims, consent decrees, Medicare and Medicaid issues, and federal supply issues.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Di Spirito served as an executive for major pharmaceutical manufacturers in marketing, manufacturing, advertising, FDA regulatory and compliance, new drug approval, and worldwide business development. He also negotiated with regulatory authorities to launch products and manage them throughout the product life cycle.
As one of the leading authorities in his practice area, Mr. Di Spirito teaches pharmaceutical, biologic, and medical device law at the Food and Drug Law Institute (FDLI) and to the FDA's newly hired attorneys, reviewers, and compliance officers. He also serves as co-chair of FDLI's 2018 Annual Conference Planning Committee and as chair of the Regulatory Committee of the Florida Medical Device Manufacturers Consortium.
"EBG's FDA team includes a group of knowledgeable attorneys who take a multidisciplinary approach to solve clients' needs, addressing critical situations that companies face throughout the life cycle of a product," said George B. Breen, Chair of the firm's National Health Care and Life Sciences Practice Steering Committee. "Neil's deep experience and industry leadership are a great fit for our practice, and we are pleased that he is joining us."
"EBG's focus on the health care industry since its founding is admirable," said Di Spirito. "I am pleased to be joining a firm that not only has deep knowledge and experience, but also embraces innovation and collaboration in a way that helps clients advance in a rapidly changing environment," he added.
About Epstein Becker Green
Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., is a national law firm with a primary focus on health care and life sciences; employment, labor, and workforce management; and litigation and business disputes. Founded in 1973 as an industry-focused firm, Epstein Becker Green has decades of experience serving clients in health care, financial services, retail, hospitality, and technology, among other industries, representing entities from startups to Fortune 100 companies. Operating in locations throughout the United States and supporting domestic and multinational clients, the firm's attorneys are committed to uncompromising client service and legal excellence. For more information, visit www.ebglaw.com.
Neil P. Di Spirito
Food and Drug Law
Government Investigations and Litigation
Health Regulatory Due Diligence
Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestitures
Medical Devices and Combination Products


Spring is the perfect time to turn your attention toward new home improvement projects, and make your home more comfortable, beautiful, and enjoyable to live in.
Many homeowners have transformed their home into their dream home with a custom sunroom from Champion. With a sunroom, you enlarge your living space, increase the value of your home and enjoy the beauty of the outdoors - without worrying about weather or pests.
In particular, sunrooms offer you the opportunity to bring a little of the outdoors inside, so you can add color and life to your indoor living. Because sunrooms provide an abundance of natural light, they are an excellent space to cultivate your favorite flowers. Enjoy a diverse collection of colors, forms and fragrance from the comfort of your sunroom with some beautiful sun-loving plants – here's some varieties that are an ideal fit for your sunroom.
In particular, sunrooms offer you the opportunity to bring a little of the outdoors inside, so you can add color and life to your indoor living.
Add something special to your indoor living with the tropical hibiscus. The hibiscus plant can grow in all sorts of vibrant colors—from shades of yellow and orange, to pink, red, purple and even blue. The plant forms giant, eye-catching blossoms that can grow as large as 8 inches in diameter. The plant blooms frequently from late spring through fall, so you can enjoy the beauty of hibiscus flowers time and again in your sunroom. Hibiscus are happy to grow in containers, which makes them a great choice for indoor gardening. Make sure to keep them near the windows in your sunroom, so they can soak up plenty of light.
Choose a charming, petite and sentimental flower to accent your sunroom. Among the easiest flowering houseplants to grow, African violets bloom all year long with little effort needed on your part. You can choose from hundreds of varieties and forms to find the perfect African violet to match the decor in your sunroom. The delicate blossoms are available in shades of white, pale pink, deep violet and many more variations. While the blossoms may appear delicate, the plant itself is quite hardy. Even if your green thumb isn't up to snuff, you'll do well with African violets. Overall, they prefer warm conditions and, if placed in or near a bright window, will bloom almost constantly.
Typically available March through June, Geraniums are a great choice for your sunroom this spring. Several types of geraniums are grown as houseplants. Some, like the Regal or Martha Washington geranium, have large, full blossoms that come in a variety of colors. Others, like the common geranium or ivy geranium, have more modest (but still lovely!) flowers. Whatever type of geranium you choose, your sunroom will benefit from picturesque flowers that add great color and enliven your space. You can even choose scented geraniums, whose foliage provides fantastic fragrance all year round. The best part is that geraniums are very, very easy to grow and flourish in practically any environment.
There are many flowering houseplants that can grow well in your sunroom and provide you with a space that is colorful, soothing and refreshing. Whatever plants you choose to bring a little extra spring into your home, rest assured that they'll grow well and look beautiful in your custom-designed Champion sunroom. If you don't yet have a sunroom to enjoy the colorful, fragrant flora of spring, just give Champion a call for a free estimate. Whatever style sunroom you choose, Champion custom designs, builds and manufactures your sunroom to complement your home's architectural style, and enhance your family's lifestyle.


Amazon has a HOT Gold Box Deal today! This Scotch Thermal Laminator is on sale for only $16.99 (reg. $80.49) and it ships free with Prime or Super Saver (over $35) shipping.
The Scotch Thermal Laminator TL901 features a two roller system with two heat settings that allows you to laminate items up to 9 inches wide and use laminating pouches up to 5mil thick. You can laminate letter-size, legal-size, business-card size, and photo-size papers, all with crisp, clear results. This laminator is photo-safe and features a jam release lever to quickly release items if they get caught in the machine. Weighing only 5.4 pounds and taking up only 9 inches of surface space, it is portable and easy to stow away when not in use.
Looks perfect for preserving your kids' school work and tons of other things.
Check out what one reviewer had to say: I have had this machine running since I got it, and just love it! It's simple to use, works wonderfully and doesnt' take up a ton of space. I have a special needs toddler, who uses picture cards to communicate her needs, and this has made over 100 PECS cards for her book, and now she's even taking them to Pre-k to use them as well! Wonderful machine that is making my little one's life so much better! I am also having tons of fun using it for my small business for price lists and advertising! Great little machine!
This laminator comes with 2 laminating pouches but you might want to grab more if you order today. This size, the 8.9 x 11.4″ 100-pack is on sale right now for 60% off, only $9.94 (reg. $24.68).
Grab the laminator here, and shop for some pouches to go with it here! This discount is only good today so grab it now if you'd like to have one.


text:
Inscribed Stone Documenting a Gift of Land
Unknown721 BCE - 711 BCE
View in Street View
Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
As a rule, Mesopotamian legal documents were clay tablets on which the text was written in cuneiform script. In addition, there were also documents intended for special purposes, as may be deduced from their materials and design. These are of stone, and alongside the inscribed text they generally bear particular symbols, and sometimes even images of persons. Although the tradition of such inscribe stones documenting legal transactions regarding land goes back to the third mil¬lennium BCE, their function has not yet been definitively explained, and the Babylonian term kudurru has no unambiguous translation. The idea that the word may have meant 'boundary stone' can, however be excluded, as such costly works would not have been placed out in the fields. On the other hand, not enough is known about the location of such finds to suggest the specific use to which they were put. For the present, then, it remains likely that the kudurru are ceremonial records that would have had a public function. Placed in prominent and accessible locations, they may have been a way of publishing the legal transactions recorded, generally matters of public interest because, as a rule, the persons involved were high dignitaries of the state. The kudurru of Marduk-apla-iddina II in Berlin is an impressive example of this. This king too, who reigned from 721 to 711 BCE, used crown lands to reward people with gifts and so bind them to him. This document tells of the merit of temple official Bel-ache-eri and of the gift of land made to him. [...] As well as images of the persons involved (the king stands on the left), there are also other symbols attributable to various gods which reinforce and validate the deed of gift.
Title: Inscribed Stone Documenting a Gift of Land
Creator: Unknown
Date Created: 721 BCE - 711 BCE
Location: Babylon, Iraq
Physical Dimensions: w33 x h46 x d10.5 cm
Type: Stele with relief and Inscription
Medium: Marble
Inv. no.: VA 2663
ISIL no.: DE-MUS-815718
External link:
Copyrights: Photo © bpk - Photo Agency / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz / Olaf M. Teßmer || Text © Scala Publishers / Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Joachim Marzahn
Collection: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Relief Orthostat
Divine Seal
Head of a statue of the ruler Puzur-Eshtar of Mari
Head of a Statuette of a Woman
Statuette of Ur-ningirsu
Proceeding Lion, detail from the Processional Way of Babylon
Certificate stone (Kudurru)
Marduk-apla-iddina II