Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Ten Banks Agree to Pay $8.5 Billion for Foreclosure Abuse
January 7th, 2013Via: AP: Ten major banks and mortgage companies agreed Monday to pay $8.5 billion to settle federal complaints that they wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes. The banks, which include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, will pay billions to homeowners to end a review […]
CombiBar
January 6th, 2013Don’t leave home without it. *chortle* Via: Reuters: Private investors in Switzerland, Austria and Germany are lining up to buy gold bars the size of a credit card that can easily be broken into one gram pieces and used as payment in an emergency. Now Swiss refinery Valcambi, a unit of U.S. mining giant Newmont, […]
Christopher Tolkien on the Evisceration of His Father’s Work
January 6th, 2013Via: WorldCrunch: Christopher Tolkien gave his first ever press interview with Le Monde, shedding light on his father’s vision and sharing his own deep dismay with Hobbit director Peter Jackson. … This commercial galaxy is now worth several billion dollars — most of which does not go to Tolkien’s heirs, and thus complicates the management […]
California Now Officially Tolerates Some Homemade Food Businesses
January 5th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Granola makers, homemade vinegar producers, and other foodies in California have cause to rejoice today. As of Jan. 1, a new state law allows people who make food at home to sell it to restaurants and grocery stores. Leave it to California to upend decades of public health consensus that food businesses need […]
‘Can a $1 Trillion Coin End Debt Ceiling Crisis?’
January 5th, 2013There’s a lot of laughter about this, but the proposal is not altogether different from what the U.S. is doing already in slow motion. The key difference between simply minting trillion dollar coins and the way the debt scam is currently done is as follows: If the U.S. Government prints x number of trillion dollar […]
How Bankers Help Drug Traffickers and Terrorists
January 5th, 2013Via: New York Times: LAST month, HSBC admitted in court pleadings that it had allowed big Mexican and Colombian drug cartels to launder at least $881 million. The bank also admitted to using various schemes to move hundreds of millions of dollars to nations subject to trade sanctions, including Iran, Cuba and Sudan, in violation […]
Greece: Communities Ditch Euro, Use Local Currencies and Bartering to Beat the Economic Crisis
January 5th, 2013When I first posted about the Tem back in March 2012, there were only an estimated 300 people using it. Now, there are 1,300. Via: Guardian: It’s been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done […]
In Spain, Locksmiths Refuse to Cooperate with Foreclosures and Evictions
January 5th, 2013Via: The World: In Spain, in 2012, more than 50,000 families were evicted from their homes when they failed to pay their rent or mortgage. As the year wound down a handful of people committed suicide after learning they would be evicted. Now, in Pamplona, a group of experts who help carry out the evictions […]
U.S. Military Does Deal with Microsoft for Windows 8 and Other Software
January 5th, 2013Since Windows 8 is a bigger turd than Vista, it must be nice for Microsoft to be able to dump it on the U.S. taxpayer via Uncle $cam. Via: U.S. Department of Defense: The Defense Department has leveraged the buying power of more than two million information technology users to award a three-year, $617 million […]
Write Gambling Software, Go to Prison
January 3rd, 2013Via: Wired: In a criminal case sure to make programmers nervous, a software maker who licenses a program used by online casinos and bookmakers overseas is being charged with promoting gambling in New York because authorities say his software was used by others for illegal betting in that state. New York authorities say that about […]
