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POPSMcCain pushes $300 billion mortgage plan I def. think he is Fracking high on something. First, this "plan" would piss off a lot of people who bought houses they could afford and would then watch others who bought houses they could not afford (granted given bad advice/loans) and have taxpayers bail them out so they can stay in homes they really should not be in, in the first place. If there had been oversight in the govt and better regulation, none of these people would be in the situation they are in because it would have been a crime for these douche bag mortgage brokers and others to pitch them and give them the loans. So now this guy wants to take another $300 billion on top of the almost trillion the tax payers have already put into this mess. What a fracking idiot.
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POPSBillions of dollars California unclaimed money in Treasury Most Americans suffering from the ongoing credit crunch aren't aware that there are billions of dollars unclaimed money in California and other States. The lost money is sitting-around waiting for unclaimed property owners to step forward and file a claim.
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POPSFINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System (Update3) The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone. Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahwz_k5JvuB8&refer=worldwide
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POPS The Bailout: Will The Center Hold? The bill takes a hybrid approach, and in the case of assets bought at auction, the most severe penalties kick in only when Treasury has bought more than $300 million in assets. At that juncture, a 20 percent surtax would be imposed on rich severance packages, and in the case of highly paid executives, the company would lose its deduction for salaries above $500,000. The second compromise dealt with a Republican proposal that the government intervene in the markets, not by buying up bad assets but by providing a federally backed insurance program that might make the same mortgage-related securities more salable. House GOP leaders had warned Saturday evening that they would need to take any deal to their rank-and-file members before committing to back it. In a sign that negotiations were growing serious earlier in the evening, a Pelosi aide collected BlackBerrys from the staffers meeting in her office so that no details would leak out.
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POPSSteve Jobs - 61st out of the 400 Riches Americans Quote: Jobs dismisses health worries, but shareholders fret his pancreatic cancer has returned after gaunt pictures of the King of the iGeeks surfaced in June. Stock up more than 100% between January 2007 and January 2008; now down 16% as the market reacts to health concerns. Launched new iPhone 3G in July. Sleeker, faster gadget sells for $300, half the price of the original; sold one million units on first weekend. Original iPhone took 74 days to reach millionth sale. Founded Apple in garage. Created Macintosh 1976, fired 9 years later after power struggle with chief exec John Sculley. Bought Pixar for $10 million, transformed firm into animation darling with hits Toy Story, Finding Nemo. Sold to Disney 2006 for 7.3% stake in the company—now worth $4.3 billion. Returned to Apple 1996. A third of Apple's $24 billion annual revenues are from iPod. Tweaked iterations introduced last month.
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POPSStress management work at work Top tips for Stress management at work place to excel your performance. You will learn the importance of corporate stress management training for better productivity.
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POPSCorporate Welfare End the corporate welfare, close up the loopholes, subsidies, and the offshore enabling, and it might be feasible to lower corporate taxes to between 15 and 25 percent, on the record. Not that most don't pay this percent now...
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POPSBeating a Dead Horse I've commented on this topic many times over the past months, so why not give it one more go. There are two groups responsible for the mortgage mess - the individuals who took out exotic mortgages on houses they couldn't afford, and the financial institutions who sold them those mortgages. I understand we can't let the system fail, but I see no reason why my tax dollars have to go towards helping bail these two groups out. They made terrible decisions. All a bill like this does is reinforce stupid behavior, because if we fail, the government will bail us out. If you had your home re-possessed, it's because you couldn't afford it in the first place. If a financial institution is going down because of all the write-downs they've had to take on bad mortgages, it's because their leadership authorized bad decisions. Are there some exceptions to the above - sure there are. But those aren't the situations that this bill is addressing.
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POPSAl Gore Inches Toward Solartopia A major root of the Solartopian vision of an Earth totally free of fossil and nuclear fuels dates back to the 1975 “Toward Tomorrow Fair” at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Featuring, among others, the work of wind pioneer William Heronemus and efficiency guru Amory Lovins, the gathering joined the vision of a totally green-powered Earth with the rise of the grassroots No Nukes movement.
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POPSAngelo Mozilo's Bedfellows For the sake of its shareholders and the taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook, Fannie should immediately launch an internal investigation into the terms offered to Countrywide, and exactly what role Messrs. Johnson and Raines played in the negotiation of these terms. Did these men exert any pressure on Fannie employees to do business with Countrywide? Congress also needs a full accounting of the contacts between Countrywide and the politicians receiving favors from the lender. Did Countrywide ask for and receive assistance from the Friends of Angelo? Meanwhile, until it is clear how much Countrywide will benefit from Senator Dodd's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue – and exactly how Mr. Dodd came to do business with Countrywide – Congress should call a halt to legislating bailouts. Taxpayers deserve no less. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121357125417575867.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
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POPSObama Pro Quo Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who also chairs a subcommittee that oversees taxation and IRS oversight, had to donate $10,700 in loan savings from Countrywide when his deal came to light. Obama's veep vetter James Johnson quit after his Countrywide arrangement became known. Yet another Democrat's sweetheart mortgage deal is exposed — and this time it's the party's standard bearer. What could Sen. Barack Obama do for a lender in exchange for more than $100,000? Plenty. If Obama is animated by high ideals for the future, why are we finding so many lowdown deals in his past?
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POPSHousing Bill Threatens Personal Privacy Email Petition The Senate is currently considering a $300 billion mortgage bailout for the riskiest borrowers and their banks. Recently, it was revealed that Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the primary architect of the compromise bill that ultimately ended up on the Senate floor, had received a special “VIP” loan from Countrywide Financial, which stands to be one of the primary beneficiaries of the bill. Unfortunately, the irresponsible economics and the VIP scandal are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the bad policy in the mortgage bailout. Hidden within the bill is a provision added by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) that would greatly expand the power of the Internal Revenue Service to monitor what Americans buy online. Sen. Grassley’s provision would require the nation’s electronic payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.
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POPSCongress And The Countrywide Scandal As for Republicans, most members of the Senate Banking Committee voted for the Dodd-Frank bill in exchange for reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The reforms, part of a deal brokered by Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), create a new regulator to establish tougher standards for the portfolio holdings of Freddie and Fannie. While both of these agencies are in dire need of reform, this deal is still a mistake. By foisting this compromise on their Republican colleagues, Democrats are holding the reform of Fannie and Freddie hostage in order to increase bipartisan support for a bailout of reckless mortgage lenders. In a free market, businesses take risks and reap either profits or losses. But markets only work when businesses are held accountable for their bad decisions. The message this proposed legislation sends to the market is clear: Big lenders like Countrywide who make bad bets can count on generous bailouts
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