Frontrunning: June 4th

Nothing wrong with tweaking the jobless claims numbers: now at 621,000; the revision will be amusing (Bloomberg [1]) [When will people realize everything is "adjusted" better by 40-80k every single period]
So much for consumer spending: retailers report May sales declines (AP [2] and NYT [3])
Ye olde Goldman oil manipulation game: now forecast oil at $85 (Reuters [4]) [Can someone please go through the disclosure list on that research piece and report how many billion barrels of oil GS is long right now? thanks]
Be frightened of activist investors loading up on basis trades (Highyield Blog [5])
SEC probes Lehman research (SEC [6])
Latvia denies currency pressure (BBC [7])
General Motors goes to the garage (FT [8])
Workers more productive in Q1 - as most of them were hired by the Government UnLLC, this is surely good news and will cause a spike in NYSE:OBAM pre-market (AP [9])
V-shaped recovery outlook is in vain (Barron's [10])
The plummeting dollar prosperity plan (Delta Global [11])
Schroeder: Buffett is less bullish on U.S. than you think (Bloomberg [12])
Geithner and China: who are you fooling? (Merk [13] Fund [14])
ING plans to withdraw from 10 of the 48 countries it is currently active in (MarketWatch [15])
Why Ackman failed against Target (TheStreet [16])

Links:
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1x0BYK9smaE
[2] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-retailers-report-May-sales-apf-15436682.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/04/business/AP-US-RetailSales.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
[4] http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/markets/oil.reut/index.htm?section=money_markets
[5] http://www.highyieldblog.com/2009/06/be-frightened-of-activit-investors.html
[6] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124407330960583107.html
[7] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8082430.stm
[8] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/451907a2-5072-11de-9530-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=aa814f68-146e-11de-8cd1-0000779fd2ac.html
[9] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Productivity-increases-more-apf-15436964.html
[10] http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124404240622881505.html#mod=BOL_hps_oe
[11] http://www.deltaga.com/market-commentaries/the-plummeting-dollar-prosperity-plan.html
[12] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aUgpE2pRx5eU
[13] http://www.merkfund.com/merk-perspective/insights/2009-06-02.html
[14] http://www.merkfund.com/merk-perspective/insights/2009-06-02.html
[15] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ing-to-withdraw-from-10-countries-20096482600?siteid=rss&rss=1
[16] http://www.thestreet.com/story/10508624/1/activist-why-ackman-failed-vs-target.html