Archive for the 'Economy' Category
International Student Loan Fugitives
October 29th, 2008Via: CNN: When faced with unaffordable monthly payments and relentless creditors, some see leaving the country as their only way out. Carl, a Florida native now living overseas, is afraid to move back to the United States. That’s because he can’t afford to pay his student loans. Carl (who doesn’t want his last name used) […]
Federal Reserve: Agressive Rate Cut Seen for Later Today
October 29th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve may lower its benchmark interest rate to 1 percent today and signal further reductions to levels unseen since Dwight Eisenhower was president. Tumbling commodities prices and weaker consumer spending are slowing inflation, which officials described as a “significant concern” at their last scheduled meeting in September. Tomorrow, the Commerce Department […]
Farm-Credit Squeeze May Cut Crops, Spur Food Crisis
October 29th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. DISCLOSURE: I bought DBA this morning. My decision to buy DBA was a purely technical gamble. It’s very oversold. Stochastic cross up. MACD cross up. OBV increasing. Weekly interval long term support area. That said, my stop is 23, in case […]
New Zealand Reserve Bank to U.S. Federal Reserve: Smack My Bitch Up
October 29th, 2008All together now, let’s strap ourselves to the mast of the Ship of Fools. Via: AP: The Federal Reserve says it will supply New Zealand’s Reserve Bank with up to $US15 billion, as part of its ongoing effort to break through a global credit clog. Under the new “swap” arrangement, the US central bank will […]
Iceland Hikes Interest Rates to 18%
October 29th, 2008They’re trying to re-animate the carry trade. Via: Guardian: Iceland’s central bank unexpectedly raised interest rates by 6 percentage points to 18% today as part of a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. The move was designed to restore trust in Iceland’s battered currency. After the announcement, the Icelandic krona traded internationally for the […]
Massachusetts State Senator Accepted Bribes, Stuffed Cash Into Bra
October 29th, 2008I don’t normally pay any attention to corruption cases involving elected officials, any more than I pay attention to taking a dump or thinking about the sun rising in the sky each morning. All of these things just happen. They’re not newsworthy. But this one just made me chuckle. Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson stuffed […]
American Soviet Ministry of Finance Finally Manages to Rally Stocks
October 29th, 2008Congratulations, Comrades Hank and Ben! Via: CNN: Stocks in Asian and Pacific markets surged on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei up 6.4 percent at the midday break, a day after Wall Street posted its second-largest one-day point gain ever. Australia’s All Ordinaries index was up a modest 2.9 percent, South Korea’s KOSPI gained 3.9 percent, and […]
VW: The Grandest, Most Ridiculous Short Squeeze of All?
October 28th, 2008Priceless. Via: Portfolio: A short squeeze makes the automaker the most valuable company and the market a farce. Automakers everywhere are getting battered by an economic slowdown, but today Europe’s top carmaker is the biggest company in the world. Because of a freak event, shares of Volkswagen have spiked, giving it a market value of […]
IMF May Need to “Print Money” as Crisis Spreads
October 28th, 2008There was some foreshadowing to this back in December of 2007. See: ‘How to solve the problem of the dollar’. Via: Telegraph: The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it […]
Toy Car Company Worth More Than GM
October 28th, 2008Via: Newsweek: In the fad-driven fantasyland of toys, Hot Wheels has had an incredible ride. Those pocket rockets have been racing down their familiar orange tracks for four decades now and, unlike the real car market, show no signs of slowing down. Last year Hot Wheels set a record, as sales surged by 16 percent, […]
