Archive for December, 2009
Downgrade for Rabobank
December 9th, 2009Via: New Zealand Herald: Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has downgraded its outlook for Rabobank’s AAA credit rating to negative from stable because of the group’s lower earnings in the first half of 2009, partly due to loan losses in Ireland and the Netherlands. The downgrade in the outlook also affects the Dutch bank’s Australian […]
U.S. Transportation Security Administration Unredacted Manual for Flight and Other Screening Procedures
December 9th, 2009Via: Wikileaks: US Transportation Security Administration unredacted manual for flight and other screening procedures. This TSA manual was released by the TSA in an incompetantly redacted form—cut and paste the blacked out regions revealed the redacted text. The previously redacted regions were highlighed and sent to the New York based anti-secrecy site Cryptome.org. The TSA […]
U.S. Already $292 Billion in the Red This Year
December 9th, 2009Via: Reuters: The U.S. government racked up a gaping shortfall in the first two months of this fiscal year after posting a record budget deficit last year, congressional analysts said on Friday. In October and November, the government spent $292 billion more than it took in, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. That was even […]
Collapse In Tax Withholdings Refutes Improvements In Either Unemployment Or Corporate Profitability
December 9th, 2009Via: Zero Hedge: Even as the BLS and the administration are trying to cover up the real state of unemployment affairs using assorted semantic gimmicks of just what it means to be unemployed, and as companies provide adjusted EPS numbers, while actual earnings continue to collapse, the true barometer of spending, provided by the Financial […]
Greece Downgraded Over High Debt
December 9th, 2009Via: Financial Times: Greece saw its credit ratings downgraded to the lowest level in the eurozone on Tuesday as fears mounted over its deteriorating public finances. Heavy selling of Greek stocks and bonds came amid fears that the country was heading for financial disaster unless politicians tackled dangerously high debt levels. Shares on the Athens […]
U.S. Air Force Confirms ‘Beast of Kandahar’ Drone
December 9th, 2009Via: AFP: The US Air Force on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the “Beast of Kandahar,” a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy. The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed “to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to […]
China Executes Rogue Trader, Millions Still Missing
December 9th, 2009Via: Reuters: China on Tuesday executed a former securities trader for embezzlement, the first person in the industry to be put to death, but millions of yuan are still missing, a state newspaper said. Yang Yanming was sentenced to death in late 2005 and took the secret of the whereabouts of 65 million yuan ($9.52 […]
Woman Who Invented Credit Default Swaps is One of the Key Architects of Carbon Derivatives
December 9th, 2009Via: Washington’s Blog: Bloomberg notes that the carbon trading scheme will be largely centered around derivatives: The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to […]
I Live in a Van Down by Duke University
December 8th, 2009I have a good friend who did something like this for a year as he finished his PhD. He slept under his desk in his lab and “bathed” in the women’s bathroom during early AM hours. (Men, in case you don’t know, the women’s bathroom is usually much cleaner than the men’s.) He bought an […]
Coordinated Bombings in Baghdad Kill at Least 121
December 8th, 2009Via: New York Times: A series of devastating car bombings rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 121 people and wounding hundreds more, according to preliminary accounts by witnesses, the police and hospital officials. Five bombs in all, including at least three suicide attacks, struck near a college, a court complex in western Baghdad, a […]
