Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Children Disappearing from Hospitals in Haiti
January 24th, 2010With $50 and a plane ticket to Haiti, one can buy a slave. Via: France24: The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced Friday that several children have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti in the aftermath of the killer earthquake, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad. “We have documented let’s say around 15 cases of […]
America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship
January 23rd, 2010Holy shit, this one will scorch your eyeballs! Forget my excerpts. Click through and read the whole thing. Highly recommended. Via: Kitco: Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the […]
Credit Swaps Rise Most Since June Amid Regulatory Uncertainty
January 23rd, 2010Via: Bloomberg: The cost to protect against defaults on U.S. corporate bonds rose this week by the most since June as President Barack Obama proposed reigning in banks and Chinese regulators said credit growth would be restricted this year. Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment-Grade Index Series 13, which is linked to […]
California May Issue IOUs Again If Budget Not Fixed
January 23rd, 2010Via: Bloomberg: California Controller John Chiang said he may have to use IOUs for the second year in a row to pay some government bills unless politicians close the $20 billion budget deficit facing the most-populous U.S. state. Chiang, the elected Democrat who pays the government’s expenses, said in a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger […]
FDIC Friday: Five More Banks Fail
January 23rd, 2010Via: Wall Street Journal: Regulators seized five banks in Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, lifting the total number of failures this year to nine as financial institutions struggle with loan defaults and a weak economy. Two of the five institutions had assets of more than $1 billion. The Florida bank, in Miami, was […]
Dow Jones Industrial Average Might Move Sharply Lower
January 23rd, 2010WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Longs, watch out. Often times, on a setup like this, there’s a period of “disbelief” over what has happened, and there’s a move back up. If that happens: 1) Don’t believe it, 2) Go short.
Iraq Spent $85 Million Useless Bomb Detectors
January 22nd, 2010Via: BBC: A BBC Newsnight investigation has found that a so-called “bomb detector”, thousands of which have been sold to Iraq, cannot possibly work. Leading explosives expert Sidney Alford told Newsnight the sale of the ADE-651 was “absolutely immoral”. “This type of equipment does not work,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind betting that lives have […]
Supreme Court: Corporations Can Spend What They Want in Political Races
January 22nd, 2010Via: MSNBC: In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office. By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. […]
Unfunded Benefits Dig States’ $3 Trillion Hole
January 21st, 2010Via: Bloomberg: Everyone seems to know the current path of federal fiscal policy is a deathtrap over the long term. What’s peculiar is the relative inattention to the balance sheets of state and local governments. Hidden behind accounting fictions, the politically unspeakable reality is that public employee pension systems are under-funded by more than $2 […]
Initial Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise
January 21st, 2010Green shoots continue to drive the recovery. Via: AP: A surprising jump in first-time claims for unemployment benefits is a painful reminder that jobs remain scarce six months into the economic recovery. The increase deflated hopes among some analysts that the economy would produce a net gain in jobs in January. The Labor Department said […]
