Good evening all, and farewell to July. Here’s your news.

International Finances

❖ Oh nooos. BP had a “plunging” net loss of $1.39 billion in the 2nd quarter, and almost $5.0 billion write-downs on assets values. Revenue was down 8.0% to $94.8 billion, total production by 7.4% (to 2.28 million barrels/day), and adjusted earnings were down 35%.

Money Matters USA

❖ “ Business Activity In U.S. Unexpectedly Grows At Faster Pace”, with manufacturing showing “modest improvement”. However, . . .

❖ In July, Americans spent less than they have since August 2011. “Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity,” so this raises red flags all around.

❖ “ Fed expected to hold fire despite weak U.S. Growth “. If anybody thinks they might actually do anything, they won’t, you see, because they are “waiting until the economic picture becomes clearer”–never mind that it’s pretty darned obvious to millions upon millions of the rest of us.

❖ Incomes for the US top 1% and 0.1% have doubled and tripled, respectively, between 1980-2010. Incomes for the rest of us fell by 4.8%. Those are income figures which should relate to how much people have, but they don’t, according to Federal Reserve figures. So, where’s the missing dough? In tax havens, about $10 trillion owned by the US super-wealthy.

Politics USA

❖ “In 2004, 9 votes per precinct pushed George W. Bush ahead of John Kerry in Ohio. But thousands [of votes] are thrown out each election . . ..” Why? “[B]ureaucratic confusion, clerical error”, votes “cast in the wrong precinct”, provisional ballots problems, etc.

❖ Hark! A rare example of voter fraud found : AZ Republican John Enright,

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