Oh man oh man oh man...I love California Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw! She managed to strike at the group I don't love, the mobile phone cartel!
Yes that's right, I'm calling them a cartel! Don't tell me you don't hate the mobile phone companies! Yes, they provide a service. Yes, they offer some whiz bang things like video on demand and email. But c'mon, you gotta admit that the prices are just insanely high! And don't get me started on the various fees like incoming text messages (I've been told by my Canadian friends that this is a new phenomenon up there)!
Though lately I've been on those pay-as-you go deals, what always got me about the plans were those cancellation fees. Yeah, I understand, they got a business to run and they don't want to risk losing customers. But do they have to charge fees as high as $250?? Outside of maybe one company, I don't know of any that says you get a grace period.
Hilarious! Talk about spin city! Now we know that the world has shifted to disposable workers (at least in the United States), contractors, temporary workers who are not eligible for unemployment benefits and a host of other manipulations to keep the unemployment statistics low.
Now check this out! Our government, in response to Weekly applications for jobless benefits soared to 448,000 last week, highest level since 2003 says:
The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of applications for jobless benefits soared to 448,000, an increase of 44,000 from the previous week. That was far worse than the decline of 8,000 that economists had been expecting.
Well, finally someone admits something we all know, we're in a recession:
We're in a recession,'' Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``It's going to widen, it's going to deepen.
six months, the economy lost 438,000 jobs. Manufacturing and construction shed 235,000 and 261,000 jobs, respectively, and in recent months, layoffs spread to finance and retail sales. If the economy is to pick up in the second half, the Friday jobs report will have to confound forecasters, who are generally pessimistic
The number of Americans who have seen their full-time jobs chopped to part time because of weak business has swelled to more than 3.7 million — the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago
There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits
- Mike Shedlock, a/k/a Mish, "You Know The Banking System Is Unsound When...."
This is a trivially inadequate amount of insurance, right?
Wrong.
One of the many great accomplishments of the New Deal was the Banking Act of 1933, also known as "Glass-Steagall", which among other things established the FDIC.
Hey, Democratic Senators and Congrresscritters, thanks so much for looking out for the little guy/gal once again!
Here, buried in the "housing" bailout bill, is a nice little gift for Cerberus, the private capital company that bought Chrysler from Mercedes:
(I've attached the entire gobbledygook showing what the credit is, and then check the bolded section for who it applies to!)
SEC. 3081. ELECTION TO ACCELERATE THE AMT AND RESEARCH CREDITS IN LIEU OF BONUS DEPRECIATION.
....
(b) Application to Certain Automotive Partnerships-
(1) IN GENERAL- If an applicable partnership elects the application of this subsection--
Our nation's politicians like to lecture us about free markets whenever we lose our jobs. So maybe the news from yesterday surprised you a little.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board, under pressure from lawmakers, will reconsider its timeline for a controversial rule change that may force banks to bring trillions of dollars in off-balance sheet assets onto their books at its Wednesday meeting.
The rule changes would have put about $5 Trillion of off-balance sheet assets, mostly consisting of mortgage-backed securities, onto the books of the nation's financial institutions. It now appears that the start date for these new accounting rules won't go into effect until after November 15.
After years of efforts by regulators to force financial institutions to open their books to investors, why the sudden change of heart?
There have been recent blog posts which imply a panic in the banking sector worse than the Great Depression, with highly respected financial writer Mish a/k/a Mike Shedlock making the extraordinary claim that "The entire US banking system is insolvent." His essential reasoning:
There is roughly $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. $2.60 Trillion of that is uninsured. There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. Of the $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits, the total cash on hand at banks is a mere $273.7 Billion. Where is the rest of the loot? The answer is in off balance sheet SIVs, imploding commercial real estate deals, Alt-A liar loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, toggle bonds where debt is amazingly paid back with more debt, and all sorts of other silly (and arguably fraudulent) financial wizardry schemes that have bank and brokerage firms leveraged at 30-1 or more. Those loans cannot be paid back.
In February, the administration forecast the deficit would hit $410 billion this year and drop to $407 billion in 2009. The new report said the budget deficit would fall to $178 billion in 2010, and start producing surpluses in 2012
Recent comments