Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Baltimore: Speed Cameras Issue Hundreds of Thousands of “Erroneous” Tickets
January 28th, 2014Via: Baltimore Sun: Baltimore’s speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Consultant URS Corp. evaluated the camera system as run by Xerox State and Local Solutions in 2012 and found […]
Dimon Gets 74 Percent Raise After Billions in Fines
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: After agreeing to pay $23 billion in penalties and settlements in 2013, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon was rewarded today by the board he chairs, receiving a 74 percent pay raise to $20 million. Dimon has presided over a series of costly settlements with government investigators, including paying $13 billion for […]
Legal Pot: The Gateway Drug to State-Run Banking?
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: If ever a hippie dream existed, it would probably look something like what’s being proposed in Washington by Democratic State Senator Bob Hasegawa. He wants to open a state-run bank specifically to serve Washington’s newly legal marijuana industry. The proposal would solve two real problems: Pot businesses would no longer be trapped in […]
Why Are U.S. Corporate Profits So High? Because Wages Are So Low
January 27th, 2014Automation is the key, but this piece doesn’t mention it. The companies have, “Still managed to boost profits beyond anything ever seen before because they’ve got away with employing as few workers as possible at as low a rate as possible.” I’ve got news for Jamie McGeever at Reuters: Companies only ever employ as few […]
Recovery: Working Age People Make Up Majority of Those Receiving Food Stamps
January 27th, 2014Via: AP: In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients. Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a […]
Bank of America Investigated for Front Running
January 25th, 2014Via: Reuters: The U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have both held investigations into whether Bank of America (BAC) engaged in improper trading by doing its own futures trades ahead of executing large orders for clients, according to a regulatory filing. The June 2013 disclosure, which Reuters recently reviewed on a […]
Argentina: Peso Collapses
January 25th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: Argentina scrapped some of its currency controls a day after devaluing the peso as policy makers sought to stem a financial crisis and restore investor confidence by reversing measures that drove foreign reserves to a seven-year low. Bonds fell and the cost to insure the South American nation’s debt against default soared to […]
HSBC Imposes Restrictions on ‘Large’ Cash Withdrawals
January 25th, 2014Via: BBC: Some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it, the BBC has learnt. Listeners have told Radio 4’s Money Box they were stopped from withdrawing amounts ranging from £5,000 to £10,000. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of […]
Success of “The Wolf of Wall Street” a Sell Indicator?
January 24th, 2014Via: CNBC: Could the success of “The Wolf of Wall Street” signal that the market is near a top? Carter Worth, chief market technician at Oppenheimer, argues that the Oscar-nominated movie should indeed give bulls pause. After all, he said, interest in the film shows that interest in the market has gone mainstream—an observation bolstered […]
Covert Action in Colombia
January 24th, 2014Via: Washington Post: The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more […]
