The Links

In a few minutes we will start with the WSJ links, where I assume the headline story with be the contracting GDP.

An early guest on CNBC this morning was not impressed with the "spin" that others had regarding the explanation for the first quarterly contraction since 2009. Bottom line, end of the day, end of the month: a bad report. He mentioned that some were attributing the contraction to a decrease in defense spending. Okay. No one has asked the question: how did the analysts get it so wrong? One report: analysts said the decrease in defense spending knocked 2.5 points off the GDP, and analysts had expected a GDP of around 2.0%. Defense spending is an open book. That's the one thing the analysts should have had access to; consumer spending is the challenge, and consumer spending was healthy.

WSJ links.

The story for the day: BlackBerry

The non-story of the day: BlackBerry

Boeing: "business as usual"

Some unions wary of ObamaCare which they backed

Section D (personal journal): maybe later, not enough time right now.

Section C (money and investing): 
BlackBerry release is no perfect 10. In fact, reading between the lines: a disaster.  Spending millions on Super Bowl ads in early February (almost January) and of the two phones, one won't be available until mid-March; the other won't be available until April. By that time, those Super Bowl ads are all but forgotten (unless they are really, really good and they end up going viral on YouTube).

Section B (marketplace): and there it is again -- huge front page, headline story: finally, a BlackBerry -- but more delays. No link. Easy to find if interested.

Chesapeake investors tired of the 'Aubrey discount.'

Boeing plays down 787 woes; net falls 30%. The company says it is "business as usual." Something tells me they will regret that "que sera sera" attitude. Oh, by the way, from CNBC this a.m.: the term for Boeing 787  lithium batteries that start on fire: "non-passive failures."

And yet another story (an interview) about RIM/BlackBerry. Won't read.

Chrysler's aging cars pose hurdles.

Section A:

Recovery shows a soft spot. The contraction. Foreshadowing the Great Recession of 2013.

Cue up Connie Francis: some unions grow wary of health law they backed. This may be the only WSJ story I read thrice today. Cue up Connie Francis.

Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama administration's health-care overhaul when it was up for debate. Now that the law is rolling out, some are turning sour.

Union leaders say many of the law's requirements will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay on their parents' plans until they turn 26.

To offset that, the nation's largest labor groups want their lower-paid members to be able to get federal insurance subsidies while remaining on their plans. In the law, these subsidies were designed only for low-income workers without employer coverage as a way to help them buy private insurance.

This is so much fun. I am helping my older granddaughter with cursive writing. Bless her teacher: the latter takes cursive writing seriously. On the front page of the WSJ: the new script for teaching handwriting is no script at all.

Her teacher, by the way, introduced her to no less than three different ways to multiply multi-digit numbers (not using the abacus, calculator, or computer), including lattice multiplication of which I was completely ignorant. Very interesting. Will be interesting to look at the origin of that method. Probably Indian.

Page 3 and we've talked about page 3 often: Illinois yanks bond amid pension woes. OH, OH.

Illinois took the rare step Wednesday of postponing a bond auction just hours before it was expected to launch, as concerns grew among investors over the state's deep pension hole.

While Illinois still has ready access to capital markets, state officials feared a jump in interest costs to attract buyers if they went forward with plans to sell $500 million in bonds for school and transportation projects. Bond investors have become increasingly leery of the state because of a deadlock in the Illinois Legislature over how to fill a $96.8 billion pension shortfall, considered by researchers as the worst among U.S. states.

"It's the first real market indication that, because of our fiscal condition, we couldn't sell bonds," said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago, referring to his home state. His firm had no role in the Illinois bond sale. 

This story I might read thrice, also. Fits into David Graeber's book that I am reading: Debt: The First 5,000 Years. It also explains why Geithner's idea of getting rid of the debt limit makes sense to some folks.

More from the Illinois story:

The potential jump in borrowing costs is the latest sign of growing fiscal challenges in Illinois. The state already is paying the highest interest rates—at about 3.2% on its 10-year bonds, according to Thomson Reuters Municipal Market Data—among U.S. states, and the Illinois government is behind on its bills to hospitals, doctors and pharmacies by an estimated $8.4 billion, according to the state comptroller's office.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Friday downgraded the state's debt, aligning Illinois and California as the lowest-rated states. But while California's rate outlook is positive, the credit-rating firm warned of further downgrades of Illinois if the pension issue isn't addressed.

The decision by Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, to delay Wednesday's bond sale sparked renewed calls for immediate action among lawmakers who have been debating potential fixes for more than two years. "The governor's delayed bond sale should direct our attention to the indisputable truth about pensions," said Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat.

OH, OH.

France takes aim at jobless payouts. Wow, under Hollande? This speaks volumes about how bad things are in France. Wait for the strikes to begin this summer.

The euro-zone debt crisis has ground growth in France to a halt, pushing unemployment to a 13-year high and driving up state-backed jobless-insurance payments. The system is set to post a €5 billion ($6.71 billion) deficit this year, bringing its total debt to €18.6 billion, according to a report published last week by the Cour des Comptes, the country's national auditor.

The pension system is straining France's finances, too. In 2010, when the then-government passed a law to increase the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, it hoped to balance the pension system's budget by 2018. But a state agency said in December that the pension system will show a shortfall of around €20 billion in 2020 if nothing more is done. This year, the deficit is estimated to reach €12 billion.

Op-ed: when hospitals become killers.

In 2011, the lethal germ known as CRK—short for carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella—raced through the National Institutes of Health Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Antibiotics couldn't stop it. Infection-control precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could not contain it. Six patients died because of it, including a 16-year-old boy.

Last week, public-health researchers released alarming data in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology showing that the same germ that swept through the NIH is invading hospitals across the country. Researchers writing this month in another medical journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, warn that CRK poses "a major threat to public health."

Since the discovery of CRK in 2000, it has been found predominantly in New York City and the mid-Atlantic region. But Los Angeles County, one of the few places where CRK is being tracked, detected 356 cases in the second half of 2012. "Upwards of fifty percent" of patients who contract CRK die, according to NIH researchers. 

Op-ed: As contractions go ... zero growth in the fourth quarter, but don't worry, the Fed is here....exactly what I said yesterday: Ben has marching orders to spend as much as he needs to prevent a second consecutive quarter of contraction which is the definition of "recession" in some people's books. 

Op-ed: Worried about federal fracking regulations? America's growing minerals deficit. The US is now tied for last, with Papua New Guinea, in the time it takes to get a permit for a new mine.