Do you think we have labor laws and divisions to protect you from outright theft of your wages? Think again.
The GAO investigated the Department of Labor, Wage and Hour division, now under the Obama administration and found the DOL is simply blowing off workers with legitimate complaints on getting ripped off on unpaid wages.
The GAO report, Wage and Hour Division Needs Improved Investigative Processes and Ability to Suspend Statute of Limitations to Better Protect Workers Against Wage Theft, details this investigation.
The NY Times as a great article about the role of high frequency traders in the financial market, and how they gain at a loss to others.
It was July 15, and Intel, the computer chip giant, had reporting robust earnings the night before. Some investors, smelling opportunity, set out to buy shares in the semiconductor company Broadcom. (Their activities were described by an investor at a major Wall Street firm who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job.) The slower traders faced a quandary: If they sought to buy a large number of shares at once, they would tip their hand and risk driving up Broadcom’s price. So, as is often the case on Wall Street, they divided their orders into dozens of small batches, hoping to cover their tracks. One second after the market opened, shares of Broadcom started changing hands at $26.20.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
- Hunter S. Thompson
When you live in interesting times it is sometimes hard to distinguish the real news from the fake news. For instance, I read this today.
WASHINGTON—A new report has revealed that when it comes to the important matter of owing large sums of money, Americans display a level of expertise and proficiency unrivaled throughout the world.
The Treasury Department said Thursday that it will sell a record total of $115 billion in new notes next week, more than market participants had expected.
They both look like the could be real news, don't they?
Now that the Dow has reached 9,000 and the financial crisis declared over, it seems banks, just weeks ago causing the entire world to be a potential Economic Armageddon, are back to their usual tricks, as previously noted on EP.
ere’s the scoop on this latest bailout outrage: Citi is planning to commit at least an additional $1 billion in capital to a team of stock-focused proprietary traders, say people with knowledge of these strategies — a move seemingly at odds with Pandit’s earlier vow.
When Congress was debating the bailout of Fannie and Freddie last July, the official estimate from the Congressional Budget Office was that a bailout would most likely cost taxpayers $25 billion, with only a 5% chance of the price tag reaching $100 billion between them.
In addition, both Fannie and Freddie are likely to need billions of dollars more after they report second quarter results in the coming weeks. Experts believe the cost will only continue to rise in the next year.
"We're assuming they each will cross the $100 billion mark fairly soon. They could be hitting the $200 billion barrier by the end of next year," said Bose George, mortgage analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment bank specializing in financial services firms.
Looks like a moment of sanity is emerging from the House Financial Services Committee. Chair Barney Frank is quoted as saying the Federal Reserve will not be given regulatory expansion powers, instead, a super council of existing regulatory agencies, including the Federal Reserve will oversee systemic risk.
The Obama administration’s plan to expand the Federal Reserve’s powers to oversee financial firms is failing to win supporters in Congress as some lawmakers back a proposal to give the responsibility to several regulators.
“It’s going to be shared authority,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, whose panel will write the measure, told reporters July 21, without providing details.
This is the name of China's new investment strategy. China has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world at $2 trillion. It is all ready flexing it muscles and vast financial reserves buying up natural resources all over the world. Now, China's strategy has been clearly and explicitly stated by China's premier, Wen Jiabao:
“We should hasten the implementation of our ‘going out’ strategy and combine the utilisation of foreign exchange reserves with the ‘going out’ of our enterprises,”
Mr Wen said Beijing also wanted Chinese companies to increase its share of global exports.
the percentage of total wages and salaries paid to top executives rose from roughly 28 percent of the national total in 2002 to 33 percent in 2007, just five years later.
Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.
Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified and then stonewalled another Q&A today in the House Financial Services Committee.
First to Fed. economic forecasts, otherwise known as gardening:
Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending. The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook.
Recent comments