Important News - Oct. 27
By Daniel at 27 October, 2009, 10:18 am
Forget the unemployment numbers, underemployment paints picture of the”worst economic downturn since World War II”
…
“All the data tell us that this is the worst economic downturn since World War II,” Paul Wessen, an economist with the Employment Development Department, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Might be time to learn a new skill, like train hopping or carving wooden nickles.
2)THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE THIS
“Heres a partial list of the worst projections:
California projected gain: 396,000, California Actual: LOST 336,400
Arizona projected gain: 70,000, Arizona Actual: LOST 77,300
Colorado projected gain: 59,000, Colorado Actual: LOST 58,900
Georgia projected gain: 106,000, Georgia Actual: LOST 131,000
Illinois projected gain: 148,000, Illinois Actual: LOST 148,000
Florida projected gain: 206,000, Florida Actual: LOST 165,100
Michigan projected gain: 109,000, Michigan Actual: LOST 137,300
Nevada projected gain: 34,000, Nevada Actual: LOST 33,800
Ohio projected gain: 133,000, Ohio Actual: LOST 97,500
Pennsylvania projected gain: 143,000, Pennsylvania Actual: LOST 103,200
These are just some of the worst miscalculations. Read the entire list but only if youve taken your blood pressure medication.”
3) Time for a thread change…
NY Feds secret choice to pay for swaps hits taxpayers
Excerpt:
““I think the Federal Reserve was trying to stop the spread of fear in the market,” Poole says. “The market was having enough trouble dealing with Lehman. If you add, on top of that, AIG paying off some fraction of its liabilities, a system which is already substantially frozen would freeze rock-solid.”
…
“Jerry Jordan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, says Friedman should have resigned from the New York Fed as soon as it became clear that Goldman stood to benefit from its actions.
“It’s an outrage,” Jordan says. “He needed to either resign from the Fed board or from Goldman and proceed to sell his stock.”
98,600 Goldman Shares
Friedman remains a member of Goldman’s board and held a total of 98,600 shares of the firm’s stock as of Jan. 22.”
4) “McDonald’s closes in Iceland as currency collapse takes a bite out of Big Mac profits”
5) WARNING! Industry Wide Banking Disaster Recovery (Exercise) DEVELOPING~
On Saturday, October 24, 2009, from 3:00 p.m. ET until 7:00 a.m. ET Sunday, October 25, 2009, Wells Fargo Investments, LLC will participate in an industry-wide disaster recovery exercise which may result in the brokerage website being unavailable for all or part of the event.
6) BREAKING = BALLOON BOY WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR TELLING THE TRUTH.
FIRST PLACE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
7) White House move against Fox News weak, disturbing
Jonathan Gurwitz - Jonathan Gurwitz Remember back in the summer of 2006 when Nicolle Wallace, communications director for the Bush White House, inspired graduates of a Christian high school in Virginia with a story about one of her favorite political philosophers?
“In 1924, when Adolf Hitler was being challenged in his own party on his plan to basically take Germany over, Hans Luther and the Weimar Republic held the cities, they had the army. They had the air force. They had everything on their side, and people said, ‘How can you win? How can you do this?’”
Big Finance seems to have friends on the House Financial Services Committee.
10) From this a.m.’s China Daily: “US healthcare system ‘wastes’ $850b a year
“Goldman told the Securities and Exchange Commission that computer-driven trading and an increase in stock transactions that occur off public exchanges has reduced consumer costs, increased competition and brought more liquidity to markets.
“The investing community (especially retail) has benefited from the evolving market structure and industry competition,” Goldman Sachs said in a summary of the 55-page report submitted to the agency….”
12) Increasing Signs Of Stress At Citi? (zerohedge)
A reader sends in this morsel from Citi, offering to take (and keep quiet about) a 47% loss on a Citi credit card account if only the user will pay before year’s end. A few things occur to us on reading this letter:
1. If widespread, this would appear to be awfully desperate on Citi’s part. Perhaps, combined with the massive spike in APR we’ve seen elsewhere, things are beginning to slip? Of course, this is mere speculation based on a single anecdotal case but it does make us very curious.
2. This is collossolly stupid of Citi. Once word gets out what exactly do they expect the rest of their credit card customers will consider doing?
3. The specificity of the balance settlement (53%) sounds suspiciously like someone’s model gone viral at Citi. Why this figure exactly?
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