The names of several thousand clients who lost money investing with Bernard Madoff have been released in a New York City court filing. Bernie's list of victims is overwhelmingly Jewish. The list has over 13,000 accounts on it. It's my understanding you can find a lot of luxury items for sale in Palm Beach at bargain prices. I'm surprised this guy hasn't been shot.
His potential victims are so numerous, so high-profile and the sums he apparently stole so vast, the financial analyst who blew the whistle on Madoff says he expected a bullet or worse for his trouble. "If he found out we were tracking him, I did not think I was long for this world," said Harry Markolpolis.
The riveting testimony came on Capitol Hill as a seemingly endless list of victims was released in a court filing in New York.
The 162-page list of big money names includes Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and developer Larry Silverstein, along with the merely wealthy and thousands of others who hoped Madoff would help them become that way. The names come from all corners of the country and beyond -- Florida, California, and plenty from New York. They include big businesses that might have known better, like Citi Corp., Cablevision, and Bank of America.
There was clean money apparently mixing with dirty money funneled into Madoff Securities through off-shore accounts. "When you're that big and that secretive you're going to get money from criminals like the Russian Mob and the drug cartels," said Markopolis.
Markopolis tried to blow the whistle on Madoff eight years ago and told the House Financial Service subcommittee, but no one in the government seemed interested.
The list was compiled by AlixPartners LLP, a Dallas company hired as claims agent by the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. It contains about 13,000 names, including at least six Madoffs and even Bernie Madoff's own attorney.
Authorities say Madoff admits he lost more than $50 billion belonging to investors. Defense lawyers say he has cooperated with authorities to help identify assets.
Documents have surfaced in Egypt showing the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminal, concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim, died in Cairo in 1992, Germany's ZDF television and The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The report said Heim was living under a pseudonym and had converted to Islam by the time of his death from intestinal cancer. Found something even better than the old National Socialism?
#1
This shouldn't take a 5 year study as they already have the records for many years in the past. It just takes someone to review the files and question family and co-workers. Most of that may have already been done.
#3
The article mentions PTSD, weather and possible side effects of medication as possible factors contributing to this spike. Sleretle suggests the inauguration of Obama as another factor.
One that hasn't been mentioned is the economy. We have soldiers who've been deployed 4 and 5 times now. That's a huge emotional and financial strain on their families - and doubly so if they are reservists or guardsmen who were called away from higher paying jobs. If a soldier's spouse just lost her job, or if he worries about being unable to resume his regular work when he rotates home, it's another and major stressor on top of all the rest.
Add in losing your girlfriend or spouse, or the possibility of policies under the new administration that seem, perhaps because you're already depressed, to render the deaths of your buddies meaningless ....
#5
I haven't seen the age breakdown, but if many of these soldiers are single, 18-24 and being treated for PTSD, then the anti-depressant side effect theory is pretty likely.
But if they were older, or are married, yeah - the economy is a huge worry right now.
Years ago when our toddler and I followed 2Lt Lotp to the Silicon Valley area, there was no variable housing allowance. We got the same housing pay for one of the most expensive areas in the country as people sent to Mississippi and Alabama. Painful.
There were enlisted elible for welfare benefits in our area that year, a fact that finally shamed Congress into changing the housing payment.
#6
The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.
The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.
7 with 17 pending [a maybe] for 24 which is 6x of 8 for 2008. How many murders have occurred in Chicago in January? Yes the Army is smaller than the population of Chicago as a whole, but just use the population profile of mostly young males 18-36. Still, be very concern, but its not the world ending either. There are about 520,000 in the regular lists, not counting reservists and NG on active duty who'll be off the active rolls by 30 Sep. I suspect we lose something close to this in accidents [on duty and vehicular]. Again, it needs attention, but this is also MSM crisis reporting as well.
HAWAII just had a vivid lesson in health-care economics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free - surprise, surprise - they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll.
As a result, Hawaii is ending the only state universal child health-care program in the country after just seven months.
The program, called the Keiki (Child) Care Plan, was designed to provide coverage to children whose parents can't afford private insurance but who make too much to qualify for other public programs (such as Medicaid and Hawaii's State Children's Health Insurance Program). Keiki Care was free for these gap kids, except for a $7 office-visit fee.
But then state officials found that families were dropping private coverage to enroll their children in the plan. "People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink of Hawaii's Department of Human Services.
In fact, 85 percent of the children in Keiki Care previously had been covered under a private, nonprofit plan that costs $55 a month.
When Gov. Linda Lingle saw the data, she pulled the plug on funding. With Hawaii facing budget shortfalls, she realized it was unwise to spend public money to replace private coverage that children already had.
Yet Lingle is facing a political firestorm in the state from critics who say that she's denying children health insurance - notwithstanding the fact that children in Hawaiian families earning up to $73,000 a year are eligible for Medicaid.
Because she's a heartless Pub, you see ...
All this is a lesson for political leaders in Washington who are drafting plans now to expand SCHIP to children in families earning up to $82,000 a year or more. That expansion would wind up doing what Keiki Care did: mainly crowd out the private coverage that millions of middle-income kids already have.
During last year's Washington debate over expanding SCHIP, many politicians took a principled stand against expansion of the program into these middle-income families. They supported President Bush's veto because they feared that expanding coverage to children in higher-income families would largely just crowd out existing private insurance. Plus, two-thirds of kids who lack health insurance are already eligible for government help through either SCHIP or Medicaid. The opponents of expansion said Congress' first priority should be to make sure these poorer, uninsured children are taken care of.
States have struggled to get these children enrolled. If there is a stampede to cover higher-income kids, the poorer kids will likely continue to get left behind.
The Hawaiian debacle should also be a caution to Barack Obama, who wants to mandate that all children have health insurance. This would plainly not only require penalties for those who didn't comply but also new programs to help parents get their children covered. The risk of crowd-out will be great.
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber says his studies "clearly show that crowd-out is significant" - on the order of 60 percent. In other words, SCHIP coverage replaces private health insurance 60 percent of the time, and the rate will be greater if we extend eligibility to higher-income families.
Universal coverage in any form is an increasingly elusive goal. Several states (including California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin) have attempted major efforts to advance toward health coverage for all citizens. All have had to turn back because the costs were prohibitive.
Massachusetts enacted a universal-coverage law in 2006 - but state officials no longer claim that achieving that goal is even possible. The law's backers had insisted that universal coverage was imperative to get costs under control - yet the state faces serious budget shortfalls even after imposing new fees and taxes and getting an extra $21 billion from the federal government to try to balance the program's books.
Health reform is a tricky business; any change can bring unintended consequences - especially if lawmakers don't get the incentives right.
That's why Hawaii had to say, "Aloha," to its Keiki Care program twice in just seven months.
Notably absent from the final bill is a provision that would have blocked Medicare and Medicaid funds to new or expanded physician-owned hospitals. That language was in the initial House version, but the Senate omitted the restriction in its bill.
Additionally, the legislation makes children of legal immigrants eligible for SCHIP as soon as their parents arrive in the U.S., instead of having to wait five years as was previously required. Isn't that special, they'll get the same benefits as illegal aliens.
Republican lawmakers tried but failed to maintain the five-year exclusion.
The expanded SCHIP will now cover an estimated total of 11 million children in working-poor families who don't quality for Medicaid.
Plus any other child whose parents decide to drop insurance and pick up state coverage instead, as in Hawaii.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the expanded coverage will add $32.8 billion to the cost of SCHIP from 2009 to 2013. The extra cost is to be covered by a 68-cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax.
House majority leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) lauded the bill's passage. "We can't patch every hole today; but if I could pick just one leak to stop, it would be in the hold where we keep our sick children," Hoyer said. "If you asked me for the most efficient use of a single healthcare dollar, I would put it toward covering more children."
This was pushed through in direct violation of Obama's promise of a 5 day review period for all legislation.
#1
Apart from the debate over socialized medicine, how much money could be saved in annual health care costs if the government outlawed cigarettes instead of taxing them which gives the government a vested interest in tobacco companies? Wonder if it would be less than, equal to or more than this new cigarette tax is gonna raise? But I guess the problem with that is those savings wouldn't go to the government. Besides, we gotta get them old folks outta the way somehow so they stop draining the Social Security funds.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- A recently retired Mexican army general whose bullet-riddled body was found Tuesday near Cancun had taken over as the area's top antidrug official less than 24 hours earlier, officials said.
Retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñonez, his aide and a driver were tortured before being killed, said Quintana Roo state prosecutor Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo. He said there was no doubt Tello and the others were victims of organized crime.
"The general was the most mistreated," Rodriguez said at a Tuesday night news conference monitored by El Universal newspaper. "He had burns on his skin and bones in his hands and wrists were broken."
An autopsy revealed Tello also suffered broken knees and was shot 11 times, Mexico City's Excelsior newspaper said.
Tello had just been appointed a special drug-fighting consultant for Gregorio Sanchez Martinez, the mayor of the Benito Juarez municipality, which includes the city of Cancun. Tello, who retired from the army in January at the mandatory age of 63, had moved to the resort area three weeks ago.
The three victims were found inside a white Toyota pickup truck outside of Cancun on the road to Merida. The truck belongs to the Benito Juarez municipality, Excelsior said, citing Luis Raymundo Canche, an assistant prosecutor for Quintana Roo state.
The three men were abducted Monday night, possibly in Cancun, tortured and then later shot to death, El Universal said, citing prosecutor Rodriguez. The bodies were found with their hands bound, the newspaper said. The killings happened around 4 a.m., the prosecutor said.
The other two victims were identified as Lt. Julio Cesar Roman Zuniga, who was Tello's aide and the chief bodyguard for Mayor Martínez, and civilian driver Juan Ramirez Sanchez.
Tello is the second high-ranking army officer to be killed in the area in the past few years. Lt. Col. Wilfrido Flores Saucedo and his aide were gunned down on a Cancun street in 2006. That crime remains unsolved.
The killings come as Mexico grapples with the highest violent-death rates in its history -- around 5,400 slayings in 2008, more than double the 2,477 reported in 2007, according to Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has characterized the battle among drug cartels and with government authorities as a "civil war."
On Tuesday, 12 men were gunned down in Chihuahua state in northern Mexico, Excelsior reported Wednesday. Eight other people were shot and killed in Chihuahua last weekend.
More than 200 people have been killed this year in Ciudad Juarez, the largest city in Chihuahua and considered the most violent town in Mexico, El Tiempo newspaper said, citing local authorities. Last year, according to the National Commission on Human Rights, there were 1,900 organized crime killings in the state of Chihuahua. About 1,600 of those slayings occurred in Ciudad Juarez.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A Russian-led bloc of post-Soviet nations has agreed to establish a rapid-reaction military force to combat terrorists and respond to regional emergencies, Russian media reported Wednesday. On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- decided on the rapid-reaction force at a Kremlin summit, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
Quick: what's seven times nothing?
The group's security council "spent a long time discussing the central issue of forming collective reaction forces and, generally, of rapid reaction to possible threats," said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to Russian news agency Interfax. "Everyone agreed that the formation of joint forces is necessary," he said.
Officials told Russian media that all the members had signed the agreement, though Uzbekistan submitted a special provision. Uzbekistan doesn't mind contributing military units to the rapid-reaction force "but does not consider it necessary for the moment" to attach emergency responders, drug-control forces and other special services, organization spokesman Vitaly Strugovets told Interfax.
Russian media reported that the force will be used to fight military aggressors, conduct anti-terror operations, battle regional drug trafficking and respond to natural disasters. The force will be based in Russia under a single command, with member nations contributing military units.
With Vlad's most trusted general in charge.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
"Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan"
After announcing $2 billion in loans from Russia, the president of Kyrgyzstan announced the United States will no longer have access to the Manas air base, the lone base U.S. commanders have permission to use in Central Asia and a key supply line for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
"More than once we have discussed with our American partners the subject of the economic compensation to Kyrgyzstan for the presence [of the U.S. base], but unfortunately, we did not find an understanding from the United States," Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said Tuesday. "For over three years, we have been talking of the need to review the terms of the agreement, which do not satisfy us completely, yet we have not seen an understanding from the United States."
Less than 24 hours later, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he and his ex-Soviet allies want to cooperate with Washington in Afghanistan in return for no expansion among NATO membership and a U.S. reversal on a missile defense shield for Europe that Russia opposes.
"Missile defense is a piece of it," said George Friedman, CEO of Stratfor Security. "The entire question that's on the table here is will the U.S. recognize the Russians' sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union in return for providing a supply line into Afghanistan?"
#8
Azerbaijan has got to be feeling the cold sweats tonight. Armenia just signed the practical equivalent of a military alliance with Azerbaijan's Caspian neighbors, or at least, those of them other than Iran and Turkmenistan. Couple that with last year's little demonstration in Georgia and Azerbaijan's backed into a corner.
I betcha we're going to see a Turkish/Persian axis in a few months, if Obama can't back up the implicit Bush/Clinton alliance with Azerbaijan. The Kyrgyz eggsplat doesn't bode well for *that* bet.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/05/2009 12:39 Comments ||
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#10
Why would the Azeris sweat. They are going to be rich and can afford to swamp the Armenians. It's the Armenians who need the alliance w/ the Russians. Armenia is land locked and surrounded by muslims except for Georgia, and that route is definitely closed to any Russian help.
Posted by: ed ||
02/05/2009 14:09 Comments ||
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#11
They should be sweating because the Azeris can't fight for shit & their wealth is dependent upon secure pipelines which the Georgia war just demonstrated to be easily disruptable, and a Caspian oil industry shared by, oh, you know, all the other members of this new "anti-terrorism force". Armenia's dependence upon Russian handouts isn't anything new. They've got a Russian division or two parked in their backyard. But Armenia's membership in a Warsaw Pact Part II with the non-Turkish members of the post-Soviet Near East *is* new.
Look, I'd prefer to favor the Armenian cause. They're plucky, pugnacious, resilient, and a regional underdog. But they've got some damned poisonous relations with the Azeris & their deal with the Russian devil puts them firmly into the category of international "black hats".
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/05/2009 17:06 Comments ||
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#1
Is she waiting until the levees thaw out so they can be blown up? And is it too cold for hunter/killer dolphins? And when will some country singer comment that Barack Obama hates white people?
America's CEOs are coming under fire these days not just for their hefty salaries but also for their use of private jets, limos with drivers and free trips to posh resorts.
But they aren't alone in living this lavish lifestyle -- the president of United States gets all these perks and more. And unlike some of his Cabinet appointments, he doesn't have to pay taxes on these benefits.
Taxes are for little people and Republicans.
It might be a bit of a stretch to compare today's corporate titans with the commander in chief, but some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.
"Some accountability needs to be put in place. We won't have them kicking sand in the face of taxpayers any longer," said one private equity worker on Dealbreaker.com, a Wall Street gossip site and blog.
#2
..some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.
Pox on both houses. One for massive greed and the other for massive ego. We have young men and women out there making both's existence possible who aren't pulling more than a fraction of compensation either see. And they have taxes yanked out of their pay every day like most Americans who aren't getting a bailout. You want to keep your business afloat and demand a bailout, you then work for us and you can live on salaries capped just like SES/GS salaries. If you don't want to take that pay, you don't need our money. Your bonus is to keep your job.
#3
Those other young men and women are Baby Killers(tm) and don't count. Didn't you get the Twitter from the One explaining this? He certainly explained it clearly on al-Arabiyah.
#4
The office gets those perks, not the man. Comes with the title. Always has.
If Wall Street's pissed off, tell em not to take the taxpayer money. See how they like driving cabs...
#6
In most, if not all countries, the head of state does not pay taxes.
Air Force 1 comes with the job of commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/05/2009 14:45 Comments ||
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#7
Well, Obama is working hard to lose $3.5 trillion of Americans' money. What should his salary and perks be capped at? Why is he getting a $11.2 billion helicopter ride. That's $400 million per helicopter and climbing. Give him CHANGE and let him ride the bus. And the 2 new Air Force Ones. Will the cost be contained to less than $2 billion? That's the entire Wall Street bonus budget blown on president Obama's rides and spinner rims aren't even included in the package.
Posted by: ed ||
02/05/2009 14:58 Comments ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: Basra’s Umm Qasr port on Wednesday received one passenger ship, according to the Iraqi ports department’s relations & information chief. “Today, Umm Qasr port received a Jordanian passenger ship,” Abdelkareem al-Basri told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I was looking for a cheap cruise to break the winter blues.
JERUSALEM (Rooters) - Nazi-hunters in Israel and Germany expressed doubts on Thursday about reports that Aribert Heim, dubbed "Dr Death" for killing concentration camp inmates with lethal injections to the heart, died in Cairo in 1992.
Officials at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem and Germany's Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg said there was neither solid evidence of Heim's death nor any remains of the man who fled West Germany in 1962.
Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Reuters there was "no doubt" Heim had lived in Egypt -- as German television network ZDF and The New York Times reported. "But the question is whether he died in Egypt? We have serious doubts about that," Zuroff said.
Heim, the most notorious surviving perpetrator of the Nazi killings of 6 million Jews, died in Cairo in 1992, ZDF said. It said Heim spent nearly 30 years there and converted to Islam in the early 1980s.
"I'm not yet convinced about these results," Joachim Riedel, the deputy head of the Ludwigsburg investigation agency, told Reuters. "It's possible that someone is trying give investigators the runaround or throw us off the track.
"We've experienced it often enough in the past. I'll believe it when we have an official forensic examination."
Heim has been accused of killing hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria by injecting gasoline into their hearts and performing surgery and severing organs without anesthesia, crimes he documented himself, Zuroff said.
People who said they knew Heim after he converted to Islam and lived in what is now a shabby hotel near downtown Cairo described him as a friendly man who kept a low profile.
Abu Ahmed, a hotel worker, said he had no idea that the man who changed his name to Tarek Farid Hussein was wanted. "He was a man of good deeds," he said. "He helped needy people."
Tareq Abdel Moneim al-Rifaie, a 51-year-old dentist whose father was Heim's dentist in Egypt, said he had met Heim once or twice at his father's offices in the late 1980s. "I was definitely surprised to know he was wanted," he said. "We used to refer to him as the German man," he said, adding Heim used to send them chocolate and cakes from Groppi, a well-known confectioner and coffeehouse in downtown Cairo.
But he added his family had the impression Heim "hated Jews, or had problems with them" and sent them a paper he had written arguing that modern Jews were not Semites.
Germany's ZDF, in footage from a documentary being aired in full on Thursday, showed Heim's son Ruediger saying his father had died of cancer of the rectum on August 10, 1992, after spending 30 years in Cairo under the assumed name.
Zuroff said news of Heim's death came as the Simon Wiesenthal Center was preparing to triple its reward for finding him to 1 million euros. He said the reports lacked concrete evidence. "What is not clear, what is missing from the presentation by ZDF and the New York Times, is the conclusive proof he indeed died in Egypt in 1992," Zuroff said. "There's no grave, there's no body. We can't do any DNA testing."
Riedel too was skeptical. "The son's statements are curious. For years he said he did not know anything about his father's whereabouts," he said.
ZDF said it was believed Heim's body was buried in a pauper's cemetery near Cairo's old town.
An Austrian doctor with Adolf Hitler's infamous SS, Heim is said to have removed organs from victims without anesthetic. He kept the skull of a man he decapitated as a paperweight.
Heim was captured by U.S. forces near the end of World War Two but released in 1947. He worked as a doctor in West Germany until coming to the attention of war crimes investigators, and fled in 1962.
via instapundit.com
President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.
CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.
CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent on net. [The House bill] would have similar long-run effects, CBO said in a letter to Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, who was tapped by Mr. Obama on Tuesday to be Commerce Secretary.
CBOs basic assumption is that, in the long run, each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollars worth of private domestic capital, CBO said in its letter.
CBO said there is no crowding out in the short term, so the plan would succeed in boosting growth in 2009 and 2010.
The agency projected the Senate bill would produce between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent higher growth in 2009 than if there was no action. For 2010, the plan would boost growth by 1.2 percent to 3.6 percent.
CBO did project the bill would create jobs, though by 2011 the effects would be minuscule.
Posted by: ed ||
02/05/2009 19:32 ||
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US President Barack Obama has warned the US economy was getting sicker every day, injecting another jolt of urgency into his calls for Congress to pass his huge stimulus bill. The president also called on politicians to bridge old partisan divides and line up behind the $US900 billion ($A1.4 trillion) package, in another veiled shot at Republicans who are opposed to significant parts of the bill.
"By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression," Mr Obama said in an opinion article in The Washington Post.
Please, it's not even the recession of 1981 yet ...
"Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone - millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished."
So let's spend and borrow more money we don't have, even though that's what got us into trouble in the first place ...
Mr Obama heaped more pressure on Congress to pass the bill, as wrangling on its contents went on in the Senate amid more grim economic data. "Every day, our economy gets sicker - and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now," Mr Obama wrote.
"We have a choice to make, we can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress.
"Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us, but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship."
Mr Obama also made reference to his election victory in November for the third time in two days, making clear the point to Republicans that he believes he has a mandate to push through change.
He also blamed past Republican policies and a dearth of infrastructure spending for the economic crisis and impact of catastrophies such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007. "We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail," Mr Obama said.
The Minneapolis bridge crumbled due to a design flaw. The levees failed because the locals in charge of keeping them repaired blew the money on graft and corruption. Which, in a way, leads us to where we are now ...
It was still unclear when the final vote on the Senate version of the package would take place, as politicians worked through long lists of amendments.
Republicans are complaining that the bill contains insufficient tax cuts and is laden with spending on unnecessary projects which will not immediately create jobs.
#2
president o'bullshit, please lissen up: When all the gubbmint practices and policies that have put the economy in the toilet HAVE BEEN RECINDED, we can then talk about what to do to fix the problems. Not now, not before. OK, shithead?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/05/2009 13:00 Comments ||
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#3
He also blamed past Republican policies and a dearth of infrastructure spending for the economic crisis and impact of catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007.
Most people won't even realize those were in some very blue areas.
#5
Sucking up a trillion dollars with Treasury Bond [as in bondage/serfdom] from the economy to be blown away in a wasteful petty political rewards system will certainly make the economy weaker in the long run. Dependency(tm) is, however, a key element of the Donk concept of governing. Do it quick before the smucks figure out the game.
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil was little changed after falling on a government report that showed U.S. inventories of the fuel jumped more than twice the amount analysts forecast. Supplies rose 7.2 million barrels to 346.1 million barrels last week, the highest since July 2007, according to the Energy Department yesterday. Inventories were forecast to climb 3 million barrels, the median of 14 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices rose earlier on signs OPEC is implementing a record production cut announced in December.
Weve got a tremendous surplus in oil supplies and it will only go higher, said Sean Brodrick, natural resource analyst with Weiss Research in Jupiter, Florida. Demand is falling faster than OPEC and other producers can cut back.
Crude oil for March delivery fell 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $40.18 a barrel at 11:28 a.m. Sydney time on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures declined 46 cents, or 1.1 percent, to settle at $40.32 a barrel in New York yesterday. Prices are down 9.9 percent this year and 55 percent from a year ago.
The increase last week left stockpiles 15 percent higher than the five-year average for the period, the department said.
The price of oil for delivery in April is $3.92 a barrel higher than for March. December futures are up $13.29 from the front month. This structure, in which the future months price is higher than the one before it, is known as contango, and is often an indicator of oversupply.
The contango is fascinating, said Christopher Edmonds, the managing principal of FIG Partners Energy Research & Capital Group in Atlanta. It shows that a lot of investors are banking on the fact that the economy is getting better in the second half of the year. I dont know how realistic that is.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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investors are banking on the economy is getting better in the second half of the year
Or that the Steelworkers would not reach contract agreement with the refineries, resulting in supply disruption.
#2
I really think there's a huge bit of lying about fuel costs, first we hear the gas stations are losing due to reduced sales, and a brand new superstation is being built around the corner from my home? WTF?
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/05/2009 22:31 Comments ||
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President Barack Obama's closest economic advisers are signaling that the financial crisis will require more money and more U.S. government intervention to correct. I, for one, am surprised---what it didn't take them longer to admit it.
Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate are at odds over Obama's proposed financial stimulus package, exceeding over $900 billion.
Late on Tuesday, senators attached to the proposals an extra $11 billion in tax benefits for those buying new cars and also approved $6.5 billion for the National Institute of Health.
That pushed the value of the plan, aimed at pulling the US out of its current economic malaise, from $884 billion to more than 900 billion. A week ago, the House of Representatives adopted a plan worth $819 billion.
The rising cost of the package, however, has triggered calls for its total cost to be slashed with some Republicans calling for a complete overhaul of the Democrat-drafted text.
Some of the major changes to the 900 billion-dollar economic stimulus package proposed by opponents in the Senate would strip off a provision that would have provided $246 million in tax breaks for Hollywood studios for writing off production costs.
The opponents also refused to add a provision that would have temporarily cut the tax rate to 5.25 percent from 35 percent on profits companies earn overseas and bring back to the United States.
On Wednesday, US President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass the bill saying the economic situation is too dire for any foot-dragging, but he is said to be open to "nips and tucks" in the massive plan.
According to a Rasmussen poll published on Wednesday, 50 percent of voters think this stimulus plan -- the second such plan after a 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout approved under the Bush administration in October -- could make things worse.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I think the $900 billion bailout plan will be very helpful for the economy.
#4
It doesn't matter a whole lot what kind of spending (pork, whatever) is in the stimulus package; the point is to get the money out there moving around. For the past decade the escalating housing prices caused people to spend money (money they did not have) and thus stimulate the economy. Now even those of us who could afford to spend money are saving more instead. So, if the little people won't/can't spend, the politicians will have to do it for us.
(I am not being entirely sarcastic with that; but I am skeptical that bubbles and other artificially stimulated economies are optimal in the long term.)
#7
Bosoeker, I think idiot Pelosi mis-spoke from her "script" again. As pointed out in yesterday's Pelosi thread, there was a link to "Newsbusters" that showed she previously said 500 MILLION in a Sunday Morning one-on-one interview with Chris Wallace of Fox. This was on )1/18/09, better than 2 weeks ago. I think her Alzeimers is kicking in..
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/05/2009 8:47 Comments ||
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#8
I'll go with Alzheimer's and dementia. No problem.
#9
Fine, Glenmore. Then they can cut my taxes and I'll go out and spend the money on MY priorities. Since it doesn't matter how it's spent, you Keynesian you.
#10
Printing money and increasing taxes while giving money to the indolent and lazy is destructive to the economy. When the government prints money and increases debt inflation increases. Go back and read the simple records of the French Revolution with the opulence of the wealthy. True production of goods and services increases the economy. Do your research. Socialism is a failure in the historical setting. Northern Europe is in chaos financially
#11
I think if there is going to be a stimulus then it needs to be directed to our manufacturing industry. Much like how oil is an imported resource that we need to remove our dependence on, product manufacturing resources need to be brought back home. I was reading articles over at americanboom.com about what a devastating effect moving these jobs over seas has caused. And it is not exactly all of the "big" companies fault, if Americans were willing to pay a little more for products made here than those jobs may have not ended up over seas.
Posted by: Anthony ||
02/05/2009 11:04 Comments ||
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#12
mojo,
I am not actually a Keynsian, I was just taking that position for the sake of discussion. ASSUMING Keynsianism, then cutting taxes and letting YOU choose how to spend your money would not work, since you might choose to SAVE it (perhaps not the wisest choice in times of runaway inflation, which is the ultimate result of printing more money, but ...) If the GOVERNMENT takes your money (from your savings, via inflation, or from your income, via taxes) they can be sure it was getting spent and 'stimulating' the economy.
In my real opinion, the economic system is too complex to 'manage' and in the long run we'd probably be better off not even trying - but that causes discomfort, even pain, to lots of people, making 'management' a very appealing political position.
#13
Government spending is only stimulative when it is spent. Most of the spending won't hit for at least a year if not more. And of course the big O is right that the tax cuts won't help, at least the tax cuts they have in the bill, they are too marginal. $10-15 more in paycheck? That's not going to change spending habits. There are two issues that need to be addressed first and foremost, first is the housing markets. They need to be jumpstarted to stop the freefall in homeowner equity. How best to do that? I don't know the best way, but $15k in tax deductions for buying a home should help some. We could burn down all of the vacant homes, haha, that actually would help a lot. Except it would be pretty CO2 heavy! The second thing that needs to be fixed is the liquidity in the banks. The reason banks aren't loaning isn't because they are scared (although they are) but it is because they don't have the reserves. How do you fix that? Good question. The answer I believe is you don't, wait for the bad paper to clear out of the system. Let the fever run its course, so to speak. And of course all of the stimulus supporters completely ignore the downside to this spending. Inflation. And it's going to be huge inflation. Guaranteed. Even Keynes knows that high inflation follows high government borrowing/spending. Oh and giving people who don't pay taxes a tax credit? That will help China more than anything. BTW, I have a 'shovel-ready' project O could fund. I own a lot and I am ready to build. But I can't until I sell my current home.
Panasonic Corp. said Wednesday it will slash 15,000 jobs and shut down 27 plants worldwide to cope with plunging demand for its TVs, semiconductors and other electronics products.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Perspective: They amount to about 5 percent of its 300,000-strong global work force.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The names of several thousand clients who lost money investing with Bernard Madoff have been released in a New York City court filing. 
HAWAII just had a vivid lesson in health-care economics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free - surprise, surprise - they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll. 
WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 -- President Barack Obama signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill into law this afternoon, expanding coverage to 4.1 million more kids and extending the program through 2013.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- A recently retired Mexican army general whose bullet-riddled body was found Tuesday near Cancun had taken over as the area's top antidrug official less than 24 hours earlier, officials said.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A Russian-led bloc of post-Soviet nations has agreed to establish a rapid-reaction military force to combat terrorists and respond to regional emergencies, Russian media reported Wednesday. On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- decided on the rapid-reaction force at a Kremlin summit, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil was little changed after falling on a government report that showed U.S. inventories of the fuel jumped more than twice the amount analysts forecast. Supplies rose 7.2 million barrels to 346.1 million barrels last week, the highest since July 2007, according to the Energy Department yesterday. Inventories were forecast to climb 3 million barrels, the median of 14 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices rose earlier on signs OPEC is implementing a record production cut announced in December.
Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate are at odds over Obama's proposed financial stimulus package, exceeding over $900 billion. 
