Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Rich Have Stolen The Economy


The Rich Have Stolen The Economy

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other Wall Street firms. Bloomberg reports that none of these aides faced Senate confirmation. Yet, they are overseeing the handout of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to their former employers.

The gifts of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money provided the banks with an abundance of low cost capital that has boosted the banks’ profits, while the taxpayers who provided the capital are increasingly unemployed and homeless.

JPMorgan Chase announced that it has earned $3.6 billion in the third quarter of this year.

Goldman Sachs has made so much money during this year of economic crisis that enormous bonuses are in the works. London Evening Standard reports that Goldman Sachs’ “5,500 London staff can look forward to record average payouts of around 500,000 pounds ($800,000) each. Senior executives will get bonuses of several million pounds each with the highest paid as much as 10 million pounds ($16 million).“

In the event the banksters can’t figure out how to enjoy the riches, the Financial Times is offering a new magazine–”How To Spend It.” New York City’s retailers are praying for some of it, suffering a 15.3% vacancy rate on Fifth Avenue. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that retail sales adjusted for inflation have declined to the level of 10 years ago: “Virtually 10 years worth of real retail sales growth has been destroyed in the still unfolding depression.”
The Rich Have Stolen The Economy | War On You: Breaking Alternative News

Merck Wins U.S. Approval for Gardasil Vaccine in Boys

Merck & Co.’s Gardasil, a vaccine used to prevent cervical cancer in women, won U.S. regulatory approval for preventing genital warts in boys.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the vaccine for use in males ages 9 to 26, Merck said today in a statement.

Gardasil protects against a sexually transmitted infection called human papillomavirus, or HPV, that can lead to cervical cancer in women and genital warts and cancer of the penis and anus in men. Gardasil, approved for females ages 9 to 26, is given mostly to school-age girls as a U.S.-recommended routine vaccination. Expanding the shot’s use could revive sales, which declined 5 percent last year, analysts have said.
Merck Wins U.S. Approval for Gardasil Vaccine in Boys | War On You: Breaking Alternative News

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Sunday, April 19, 2009

Live - Chinese Grand Prix

LIVE TEXT COMMENTARY (all times BST)

To get involved text us on 81111 with FORMULA 1 before your message. (Not all contributions can be used; UK mobiles only; network rates apply)
By Caroline Cheese
0630: Has F1 been turned on its head again Are Brawn about to be usurped by Red Bull Or are those fuel loads [...]

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[Source: vote tags: Tracking the Vote - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Key Witness In Obama Passport Fraud Case Murdered

By Devvy Kidd
4-19-9
The dozens upon dozens of deaths of people who knew or were involved with (positive or negative) under the Clinton dictatorship still remains a stunning thing in my mind.
As I have said many times, we do not know what the government is investigating until something happens, i.e., Patrick Fitzgerald holds a press conference [...]

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[Source: War On You: Breaking Alternative News - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Dallas officer delayed NFL player as relative died


A police officer was placed on administrative leave Thursday over a traffic stop involving an NFL player whom he kept in a hospital parking lot and threatened to arrest while his mother-in-law died inside the building.

Officer Robert Powell also drew ...

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[Source: Ron Paul forum - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Monday, March 23, 2009

First Black President to Reinstate Slavery?







First Black President to Reinstate Slavery?
When tyrants want to take the next big step towards
totalitarianism, they usually toss out some “trial balloons,” both
to see how people react and to begin desensitizing people to the
new fascist agenda. If they’re smart, they first propose a big leap
toward totalitarianism, and then cut it back to a small step. [...]


Related posts:
  1. H.R.393 - Mandatory civil service - Reinstate the Draft
  2. First President In History To Veto Benefits For Vets
  3. Black Hole Alert: AIG to Get as Much as $30 Billion More


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[Source: War On You: Breaking Alternative News - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Bright Spots on the Foreclosure Front?


Amid the gloom and doom of the foreclosure crisis, there’s the state of Nebraska.


In the last three months, nearly 870,000 homes throughout the country have entered some stage of the foreclosure process, 29% more than the same period a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac. But in Nebraska, the cornfield-strewn homeland of Warren Buffett, filings are down 91%.


In fact, Nebraska has only recorded 90 foreclosure filings in the past three months. To put that in perspective, that’s one in every 8,676 households. Nevada, which tops the nation’s foreclosure charts (it logged 45,266 filings in the last three months), has seen one foreclosure per every 24 households.


Nebraska isn't the only place where foreclosures appear to be stemming. RealtyTrac’s latest data show a decrease in foreclosure filings in 16 states, including Montana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Mexico and Colorado, which have all seen foreclosures filings fall by 30% or more. (See our table below for more information.)


So does this mean things are turning around?


Sadly, this trend may be short-lived, says Erin Smith, senior economist with Moody’s Economy.com. Employment in these areas is starting to weaken and you can’t have a strong housing market when unemployment is rising. “We’re forecasting that while foreclosure rates are performing better in these regions, the gap will shrink,” he says. “I wouldn’t expect these states to be outperforming a year from now.”


Many of these states are bucking the foreclosure trend thanks to their relatively stable labor markets. In Nebraska, for example, the unemployment rate in January was 4.3%, up from 3.9% in December 2008, but still low compared with a 7.6% national average for that month. The major industries in the region — mining, manufacturing and construction — have so far held up.


Even construction has remained strong thanks to the region’s relatively mild real estate price declines, says Smith. Nebraska didn't see the wild housing price appreciation brought on by speculators in Florida and Nevada, for example, so it hasn’t had severe price declines.


Between 2002 and 2006, the median price of existing single-family homes in Omaha, Neb., went up just 13%, according to the National Association of Realtors. Between 2006 and 2008, prices declined just 2%. Contrast this to the Miami Beach/ Ft. Lauderdale metro area, where prices jumped 93% between 2002 and 2006 and have dropped 23% since. (All data are as of year-end 2008.)


Local and community banks also remain fairly healthy in regions that didn’t go through these boom-and-bust cycles, so they've been able to continue lending to homeowners, Smith says.


The foreclosure numbers can also be a little deceiving. The decline in foreclosure rates in some states is simply caused by backlogs in the court systems, says Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac. In New Jersey, for example, foreclosure filings per household were down 74% in February, compared with February 2008, even though the housing situation there isn’t getting any better.


The big surprise in February, in fact, was that foreclosure filings continued to increase overall, despite the foreclosure freezes that the big banks unilaterally implemented last month in anticipation of President Obama’s housing rescue plan. “When you have all these big players agreeing to a freeze, it’s surprising to see an increase,” Sharga says. “And one that pushed February to be the third-highest month [in foreclosure filings] so far.”


A sign, perhaps, that the foreclosure tide has been too strong to contain -- no matter what the government tries to put in place to stop it.



Bucking the Foreclosure Trend

These states have seen foreclosure filings over the past three months decline fairly significantly year over year. But just how long can these positive figures last?



































































StateTotal foreclosure filings
Dec 08 - Jan 09
Filings
per household
% Change
from year ago
Source: RealtyTrac.
Nebraska908676-91
Montana1413089-67
Massachusetts10221266-36
North Carolina6999589-34
New Mexico903955-30
Colorado13861153-30
New York10623747-28
Texas29776317-24
Connecticut5931243-22
District of Columbia888320-20
Oklahoma3273496-17
Tennessee11237242-13
New Jersey12149288-13
Missouri8873298-11
Indiana13733202-5
Ohio33690150-4


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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Pulp friction

Tensions on the border between Argentina and Uruguay

Uruguay and Argentina have argued over a huge new cellulose mill on the Uruguayan side of the river that divides the two countries since late 2006. Now, an industrial accident—a gaseous explosion in the piping of the polemical Botnia plant in Fray Bento, Uruguay on February 27th—has fuelled the dispute anew.

No victims were reported but the explosion was heard throughout the town and across the river in Argentina, and a foul odour covered the plant’s immediate surroundings. Company officials say the accident will have no environmental impact. Yet Argentinian environmentalists who have tried to derail the Finnish investment project for three years will now have new ammunition. ...



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