Free Republic

NEW YORK – Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of Lazard Ltd., has died, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, which cited sources familiar with the matter

How to give an economics writer a coronary: Recommend something that has been done twice before, and both times led to disaster, including being a major contributor to The Great Depression. Well guess what: JP Morgan and the other banks are doing exactly that. Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Banks will push the Obama administration to expand its mortgage-modification program to allow interest-only periods on reworked loans, seeking to bring more homeowners into the initiative while recognizing concern that it may only postpone defaults, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. MAY? Can I remind people of history? Prior to the depression...

Intel’s better-than-expected earnings on Tuesday will position the Dow Jones Industrial Average within striking distance of the psychologically important 10,000-point mark when the market opens Wednesday. Futures were also lifted by near stunning results from the banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM: 45.75, n.a., n.a.%), who beat analysts' estimates by a wide margin. As of 7:20 a.m. in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures jumped 118 points, or 1.2%, to 9927, the S&P 500 futures were up 14.8 points to 1083.50 and the Nasdaq 100 futures were up 23.5 points to 1750.25. Shares of the chipmaker jumped...

Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year -- a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture. Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007, according to an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end by The Wall Street Journal. Total compensation and benefits at the publicly traded firms analyzed by the Journal...

"Some arrive at Veterans Memorial two hours early" Sometimes Ernest Hayden Jr. forgets he's part of a global recession that has cost millions of workers their jobs. "You compartmentalize and think it's just you," said the 44-year-old Reynoldsburg resident, who was laid off by Limited Stores in May after 23 years with the company. Hayden was reminded yesterday at the Project Hire job fair that he's not alone, as he took his place at the end of a slow-moving line. "It's overwhelming," he said as he stood with about 500 other job seekers. "You get self-absorbed and then you come...

PepsiCo, the soft-drinks and snacks company, and Anheuser-Busch, the US subsidiary of the world’s largest brewer, on Tuesday announced a pact to jointly purchase a range of goods and services in the US. The two companies said the deal – believed to be the first of its kind between two large US corporations – covered information technology hardware, office supplies, travel and transport, as well as repair, maintenance and other services. EDITOR’S CHOICE Mexico is focus of global beer consolidation - Oct-02.PepsiCo expects ‘age of thrift’ to continue - Oct-08..The pact reflects the growing competitive threat posed to Coca-Cola, the...

What did Turbo Timmy and Bendover Bernanke think they were trying to pull? The Fed's "Quantitative Easing" is now basically defunct, with about $6 billion left out of the original $300. Of course the scam of buying Fannie and Freddie Paper (even though it is not full-faith-and-credit, as I have noted repeatedly) will continue through the first quarter of next year. But there looms a larger and more immediate problem for Treasury - their incessant "rolling down the curve" activity over the last few years has led to some real trouble, although Treasury has started to recognize this issue. Currently...

Public Discourse: Our energy secretary applauds and encourages companies to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Should any Cabinet secretary, with the powers of government behind him, be threatening U.S. companies? Part of the climate-change mantra is that the debate is over and the science is settled. Just to make sure, environmental groups have sought to pressure businesses to go green or at least keep silent. Now it would appear the whole weight of the federal government is being thrown behind this campaign to coerce and silence real and potential opposition. On Thursday, Steven...

I'm going to go back to this quote by Barney Frank of the US House, because it says everything those in state and local governments need to know: Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that the defaults were, in essence, worth it. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the bad loans occurred,” he said. “It was an effort to keep prices from falling too fast. That’s a policy.” Got it? It's a policy to screw the state and local governments. Huh, you say? It's simple, really:...

SAN FRANCISCO – Marijuana advocates are gathering signatures to get as many as three pot-legalization measures on the ballot in 2010 in California, setting up what could be a groundbreaking clash with the federal government over U.S. drug policy. At least one poll shows voters would support lifting the pot prohibition, which would make the state of more than 38 million the first in the nation to legalize marijuana. Such action would also send the state into a headlong conflict with the U.S. government while raising questions about how federal law enforcement could enforce its drug laws in the face...

Dow 10,000 - Springboard or Final Kiss Good Bye? By Simon Maierhofer On 11:32 am EDT, Friday October 9, 2009 What would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news? Well, the good news is that we are approaching Dow 10,000. The bad news is that Dow 10,000 may be nothing more than a good selling opportunity. On March 9th, the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled 'Dow 5,000? There's A Case For It.' The Dow (DJI: ^DJI) bottomed that very day at 6,440, along with the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC),...

Well, not quite — but it got your attention. Recently, 7-11 delivered 1.6 million petitions to Congress demanding that 7-11 be allowed to charge extra to customers who use credit and debit cards. Never mind that this is asking Congress to rip up a contract 7-11 has signed agreeing not to do this to us. What’s the issue? Whenever we go to the store or online to make a purchase...

Stimulating the economy isn't nearly as important to President Obama as putting federal dollars into the pockets of his union cronies. Because of Obama's PLA Executive Order, thousands of jobs are going to unions in states that have few union members. The Washington Times, for instance, reports that Obama has grandiosely given a $35 million federal construction project to the New Hampshire. But there are strings attached, strings that pull federal pay levers for the exclusive benefit of unions. In February Obama signed Executive Order 13202 that demanded that project labor agreements be forced on every federal construction project. These...

If you want to know why the dollar has been falling this week and gold hit a new high, look no further than the weak jobs numbers last Friday and the weak communique issued over the weekend at the G-7 meeting in Istanbul. Deploring "excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates" isn't exactly a ringing defense of the greenback. And 9.8% unemployment convinced markets that monetary policy will remain loose regardless of dollar weakness. Bond buyer Bill Gross of the Pimco fund summed up the situation nicely in a recent CNBC interview. Asked whether low interest rates will weaken...

Can We Really Trust The Leading Economic Indicators? Thursday, October 08, 2009 Mike Shedlock Leading economic indicators are soaring and inquiring minds are wondering if they signal a strong recovery is in the works. First let's consider the Bullish case from the ECRI. Please consider U.S. recovery 'unlikely to falter' anytime soon-ECRIOct 2 (Reuters) - An index of future U.S. economic growth slipped in the latest week, but its yearly growth rate climbed to a new record high, indicating a smooth recovery in the near-term, a research group said on Friday. The Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent...

Why gold could hit $1,500 on back of dollar’s decline: One view is that gold has become a currency of its own – one you can’t print more of The dollar's decline has paused and the record-setting ascent in the value of gold has slowed but now the political pressure is mounting on President Obama to reassure global investors that the US remains a sound financial bet. Republican politicians are looking to make political hay from the currency's slide, depicting it as proof of declining US power. Sarah Palin, the beauty queen turned vice-presidential candidate turned bestselling memoirist, is using...

Siblings Georgia, Jimmy and John Roussos have spent most of their lives working in the kitchen of the restaurant their father opened in 1954. The eatery managed to survive a hurricane and other setbacks, but it wasn't until this August that the recession took its toll, forcing Roussos Restaurant in Daphne, Ala., to permanently shut its doors. After months of slow sales, family businesses are being forced to close, ending legacies and leaving behind a wake of sad customers and loyal employees. "Some family businesses that were just hanging on have said it's time to get out," says Dann Van...

Is SEIU’s Purple Brand Fading to Pink?Posted By Don Loos On October 6, 2009 @ 7:46 am In ACORN, Big Labor, Economics, Featured Story, Politics | 25 Comments Stern’s New Big Labor Same as the Old Big Labor For the past four years, the highest profile Big Labor Boss was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern.  Stern has deliberately parlayed his controlling style as that of a New Labor Boss, and he has painstakingly worked on the SEIU “purple brand.”  And yet, Stern and the SEIU union have failed to live up to the New Labor Boss identity...

Bankruptcy professionals have a grim view on the U.S. corporate recovery, despite a recent rise in stocks and an uptick in business deals. "I think it's going to be a sad holiday season," said Lynn Tilton, chief executive officer of Patriarch Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in distressed companies. Consumers will be stingy with their spending, keeping malls and resorts empty, bankruptcy professionals said at the Reuters Restructuring Summit in New York this week. Even the wealthy will steer clear of the wild, brand-conscious spending that marked the last few years. "No one is conspicuously consuming they way...

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING... DEVELOPING...

All Speakers Live and In Person - All In One Day! President Bush, General Colin Powell, Terry Bradshaw, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Robert Schuller, Tamara Lowe, Rick Belluzzo and Rudy Giuliani. Monday, October 26, 2009 Ft. Worth Convention Center Arena · 8:00AM - 4:45PM

The ninth chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt , has upended the traditional innovation model. Among his radical ideas to fire up the $183-billion conglomerate are putting India and China at the centre of a management model that talks of developing products in emerging markets and distributing them globally. In an e-mail interview with ET , Immelt discusses the idea and GE’s India plans. Excerpts: You are expected to make some announcements regarding investments and joint ventures in India. Can you give us some details? India represents one of the significant growth markets for GE globally and we...

Businessman evicted from US Mall for Anti-Obama Merchandise PDF Print E-mail Monday, 28 September 2009 Dan Fuchs said business was just starting to pick up at his kiosk in the Mall at Johnson City. Fuchs’ business, the Graphic Edge, printed slogans and pictures on items such as coffee cups, bumper stickers and T-shirts. He said more than half of his business came from the sale of anti-Obama merchandise. Bumper stickers with slogans such as “SOS: Stop Obama’s Socialism,” “Nobama,” and “Chicago got the party, but the country got the hangover” were displayed around the small stand. Now it appears Fuchs...

Last week I had yet another lunch with yet another former venture capitalist from yet another imploding VC firm. Like a slow motion train wreck, the business of backing and building startups with private risk capital continues its decline. As the last of the money raised during the glory years gets carefully doled out to those start-ups fortunate enough to survive the triage process dominating the venture business these days, it pays to pause and ponder what the future might hold for the innovators that drive progress. Like all professionals associated with the finance industry, venture capitalists have come in...

The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. -- meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time. And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults -- aged 16 to 24, excluding students -- getting a job and moving...

A 50x server error was received attempting to serve your request, indicating that either the server is currently unable to handle the request or the request timed out waiting for a response.

The repatriation of the Timbit was held up by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Tim Hortons executives Wednesday as a shining example of low corporate tax rates luring business to Canada. The homegrown coffee giant has not technically been a Canadian company for years, but Tim Hortons Inc. is reorganizing as a Canadian public company after 99 per cent of shareholders voted Tuesday in favour of bringing the iconic coffee company back home from the U.S. The chain so ubiquitous north of the border had been registered in Delaware for nearly 15 years as a result of its purchase by...

You Can Spend Your Way Out Of A Recession Bob McTeer September 25, 2009 “You can’t spend your way out of recession” is a sound bite heard almost every day on financial TV. Recently a guest commentator combined that sound bite with this one: “You can’t borrow your way out of debt.” Perhaps the second one was intended to divert our attention from the first one. Clever. Perhaps too clever by half. Of course you can spend your way out of recession, almost by definition. A recession can be defined as a shrinkage of spending and income. More spending is...

Let the Progressive Democrats dream their redistributed wealth commie dreams because, sooner or later, reality always comes back to lay some serious bite marks on their asses. Democratic political committees have seen a decline in their fundraising fortunes this year, a result of complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party's harsh rhetoric about big business. Those currently in power in the Democratic party are from its Progressive fringe and that makes for a lot of rousing class warfare rhetoric during a campaign but...

A 21st Century Depression By Bill Bonner 09/24/09 London, England The inflation/deflation debate is hot… It crackles and pops like a pine fire. But it gives off little helpful light. Abe Lincoln may have read by the light of an open fire. But when tried it, we singed our eyebrows. It made us suspicious of Old Abe; maybe he wasn’t quite as truthful as he pretended to be. Later, we realized he was a mountebank. But that’s another story… Today, we light a candle and try to interpret the shadows on the wall… Yesterday, the Dow fell 81 points. Gold...

But I Thought The Economy Was Improving?Friday, September 25. 2009 Posted by Karl Denninger in Macro Economics at 08:42 Why is it that we're told that economic conditions are "stabilizing" and that business outlook is "improving" when even large institutions still can't pay their bills? Classified assets rated 'substandard', 'doubtful', and 'loss,' rose to $447 billion from $163 billion in 2008. The volume of SNCs rated 'doubtful' and 'loss' in 2009 rose almost 14-fold to $110 billion, while non-accrual loans touched $172 billion, up from $22 billion in 2008. 14-fold increase? 1,400% eh? Hmmmm.... But the real news in...

Nearly all the parts for the Terex Telehandler provided locally BARAGA -- Although production had dropped significantly at Terex in Baraga, over the past year, the businesses around the plant were still shocked to learn that Terex is closing its doors. And now the businesses are left wondering how they'll stay a float in a tough economy. Terex Handler's say they'll be closing the Baraga plant, between November 30th and December 11th. And this at a time when jobs in Baraga County are hard to find. "We're at 26% unemployment right now", said Baraga County Commissioner, Bill Menge. "And this...

Wichita Suffers From Bizjet Downturn AVIATION WEEK Joseph C. Anselmo janselmo@aviationweek.com William Garvey william_garvey@aviationweek.com Wichita, Kan. A severe downturn in the aviation industry has led to the loss of 30,000 jobs in Wichita as the impact from mass layoffs at companies such as Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier Learjet has rippled through small suppliers and the economy, according to Mayor Carl Brewer. Unemployment in this aviation-dependent city of 364,000 has hit 9.7% as business jet and general aviation manufacturers have throttled back on production after mass cancellations of existing orders and a dramatic reduction in new orders. "That type of...

It has been estimated that employer mandates forced on businesses by H.R. 3200 and the other legislation barreling through Congress will cost America’s businesses $49 billion a year if passed. According to the Heritage Foundation the mandates in the bills now under consideration will force employers to buy healthcare insurance for their employees or pay a per head tax to the federal government. This could affect between 95 million to 105 million workers and about 1 million small businesses. What will this mean to America’s business community? Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

I saw two amazing women speak this week about mistakes that men don’t make. They presented eight ways that women sabotage their own credibility and results in their business and personal lives. Here’s the short list: 1. Seeking Validation 2. Hoping for the Best 3. Avoiding Confrontation 4. Resisting Duality (this one’s very interesting….) 5. Blending In 6. Diminishing 7. Making It Personal 8. Taking It Personal

AS a young student at the multinational Aramco school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Fadi Jaber, a son of Palestinian refugees, always preferred his American classmates’ cupcakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies to his mother’s pastries: knafah, qatayef and baklawah. But when he tasted a vanilla-frosted vanilla cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village in 2004, it changed his life. He quit his marketing job at Unilever and used his savings to enroll in a baking and culinary management program at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. And after an internship at Billy’s Bakery in Chelsea, he was...

U.S. President Barack Obama will tell the U.N. General Assembly that the United States cannot solve all the problems of the global community by itself. Mr. Obama will tell leaders who "used to chastise America for acting alone in the world" it is time for a true "global response to global challenges," including climate change, terrorism, endless conflicts and poverty.

Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers, investors and fund managers. A number of people who heard the speech in a packed a hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling. “The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners. “She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed to be positioning...

The short story His TwitterI am going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt because twitter is a hard format to get your point across. But most of his twitter was mundane. In reading his comments, it seems there was a commonsense approach in Palin's speech. It seems from the twitter, that most of the speech was not earth shattering. But if she did say we needed to be cooperative with China when it came to the economic scuffle on the tires, it would be interesting to see what the full comments were. On the topic of...

The 1930s has become the sole object lesson for today's monetary policy. Over the past 12 months, the Federal Reserve has increased the monetary base (bank reserves plus currency in circulation) by well over 100%. While currency in circulation has grown slightly, there's been an impressive 17-fold increase in bank reserves. The federal-funds target rate now stands at an all-time low range of zero to 25 basis points, with the 91-day Treasury bill yield equally low. All this has been done to avoid a liquidity crisis and a repeat of the mistakes that led to the Great Depression. Even with...

"Bold and even savage" cuts in government spending will be necessary to bring the public deficit down after the next election, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, says today. As all three main parties begin the conference season with competing proposals for how they would make spending cuts, Clegg used a Guardian interview to set out plans including a longterm freeze in the public sector pay bill, scaling back future public sector pensions, and withdrawal of tax credits from the middle class. He is even prepared to examine means-testing universal child benefits, though he is cautious of destroying "middle-class solidarity"...

NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on corporate profit hopes, but global equities faltered and crude oil slipped toward $72 a barrel on Friday, as the U.S. dollar rebounded from a one-year low on waning risk appetite.

World’s leading economies have already spent over $10 trillion on the anti-crisis struggle. This astronomical number makes up $10,000 per each tax-payer, economists with the International Monetary Fund said. The United States and Britain take the lead in terms of the anti-crisis spending. World’s largest financial centers – New York and London - are located on the territories of these two countries: it is simply impossible to overestimate the significance, which these two centers play in the formation of the crisis. The largest bailout programs were passed in the USA and Britain, the BBC said. The States used $3.6 trillion...

Technology blogs TechCrunch and AllThingsD reported Thursday that the San Francisco microblogging upstart has raised at least $50 million in a new round of venture capital that values the company at $1 billion. Twitter, which lets you share your thoughts online — but only if they can be kept to 140 characters or less — has generated a lot of buzz, but not a lot of revenue. ($1,000,000,000 — that's 14 characters right there.) Last week, though, Twitter changed its terms of service to open the door to advertising on the site, and co-founder Biz Stone recently said the company...

One of those hopefully seminal moments, when someone, somewhere decided to take a stand against the perpetual engine of corruption, greed, and cronyism. From Judge Rakoff's Order For example, the Consent Judgment would effectively close the case without the S.E.C. adequately accounting for why, in contravention of its own policy, see Order, 8/25/08 (quoting the policy), it did not pursue charges against either Bank management or the lawyers who allegedly were responsible for the false and misleading proxy statements...

One year after America's brush with economic catastrophe, there's plenty of looking back at the bubbles that caused financial chaos. But what's next? There are surely dangerous economic bubbles forming as we speak. As Alan Greenspan warned this week, "They [financial crises] are all different, but they have one fundamental source," he said. "That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that it will continue." The trick, of course, is spotting them. By definition, most people don't spot a bubble before they form and burst. Here's 10 for which you should...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination> – and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year. >Fascinating article by Simon Parry in the Daily Mail this evening on the Ghost Fleet of Singapore — 100s of empty container ships sidelined by the recession.Excerpt: Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and...

U.S. Less Competitive Due to Wasteful Government Spending, Debt Video here. via ft.com Why did the World Economic Forum rate America as less competitive than it has in the past? In part, the WEF report demonstrated "particular concerns on the part of the business community about the government’s ability to maintain arm’s-length relationships with the private sector and in the perception that the government spends its resources wastefully." Yup, that sounds about right. It gets better though. America was rated very highly with regard to innovation and business efficiency, but we lost big points in the macroeconomics category, largely because...

Nicole GelinasKrugman, Keynes, and Ketchup The Times columnist offers exactly the wrong fix for the financial crisis. 9 September 2009 In “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?,” a lengthy essay on the financial crisis, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman urges fellow economists to re-embrace Keynesian theory, which would help “incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.” In Krugman’s view, we should accept that finance introduces unacceptable gyrations into the broader economy and learn how to smooth these fluctuations with government spending, following the principles of economist John Maynard Keynes. But Krugman’s critique overestimates the...

Recently ABC Nightline news aired an inaccurate report which made false claims about a company trying to help people struggling in today's economy. The piece, “Deal or No Deal”, aired on July 24th. The report covered Credit Solutions, a debt settlement company working on behalf of struggling Americans seeking debt relief. Rather than confirm or check the claims made in the report, the Reporter (Elizabeth Leamy) and the Producer took the side of big political donors and supporters, mainly, credit card companies and big banks. Many of the same companies which were recently bailed out with your tax dollars. Luckily,...