No Love in the Workplace
Lunch Break: Don’t Even Think of Stealing A Sip of Soda
Wal-Mart Opens a Huge Can of Worms in Bribery Probe
Sarah Palin Warns President Obama That The Secret Service Might Be ‘Checking Out’ Michelle Obama, Too
SEC Considering Charges Against Egan-Jones
“Egan-Jones plans to contest potential charges expected from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today that the credit rating agency made material and intentional misstatements in its application to the SEC to rate securities in 2008.
Specifically, the SEC may vote on whether to charge Egan-Jones with misleading the market regulator over its rating experience, its finances, its internal procedures, as well as the adequacy of its books and records.
The SEC also may charge Egan-Jones over its conflict of interest policy. Egan-Jones gets paid by investors, whereas the larger credit-rating agencies get paid by Wall Street companies who issue securities. The SEC is not contesting the actual ratings offered by Egan-Jones.
An earlier SEC inspector general report noted the market regulator had misgivings about Egan- Jones’ application to be a credit rating agency. Reuters broke the news earlier that the SEC could vote possibly later today on whether or not to charge Egan-Jones, citing people familiar with the matter.
A person close to the matter says Egan-Jones denies any wrongdoing and will fight any charges. The SEC declined comment…”
Comments »1950 CEO Pay 50-60 Times Average Worker; Today 380 Times
$AAPL, $GOOG, $ADBE, $INTU, & $DIS Receive a Class Action Lawsuit for Discriminating Labor Practices
Call Girl Tells All on Secret Service
“The New York Times’ Will Neumann has scored an interview with one of the Colombian prostitutes involved in the scandal that is rocking the Secret Service.
We don’t have a name but we have some of the key details.
- She’s 24 and a single mother.
- “They never told me they were with Obama,” she said. “They were very discreet.”
- She considered herself an escort, not a hooker. And referred to the differences of status between a Blackberry and an iPhone to distinguish between the two.
- The Secret Service agent offered to pay her $30 at the end of their tryst, when they had agreed on $800.
- When she was disgusted with that offer–he claimed he was drunk during the original negotiation–a friend of hers got involved and that is when the argument that blew the lid off the night’s activities began.
- She eventually lowered her demand to something like $250, which is what she has to pay the man who finds her clients.
- She said she understood that some of the men may have thought they were not with prostitutes.
The article is short on details, but here is a bit of the flavor:
She was dismayed, she said, that the news reports have described her as a prostitute as though she walked the streets picking up just anyone.
“It’s the same but it’s different,” she said, indicating that she is much more selective about her clients and charges much more than a streetwalker. “It’s like when you buy a fine rum or a BlackBerry or an iPhone. They have a different price.”
Read the whole thing at The New York Times >”
Comments »The Stock Market’s Love Affair
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNLfuH9BiD0&feature=relmfu 450 300]
Comments »Shareholders Reject Citibank’s, $C, Pay Proposal
First Solar. $FSLR, Pink Slips 2k
Coffee Break: A British Lord Has Been Suspended After Reportedly Offering A $16 Million Bounty On Barack Obama & George Bush
In many parts of the world there is a feeling that war crimes are being committed and that the Hague and Geneva conventions have been violated.
In this instance we have a tit for tat scenario….
Comments »Why Did 95% of Traders Stage a Walk Out of the CME on Friday ?
“Here’s something interesting that happened in options pits in Chicago today.
Dow Jones is reporting that at the CME Group about 95% of the independent floor traders (aka “locals”) staged a walkout boycotting pit-trading options of Eurodollar futures on Friday.
Eurodollar futures are the most actively traded interest rate product at the exchange, the report said.
Here’s why they’re ticked off [via Dow Jones’ Newswires] (emphasis added)
The protest follows a massive block options trade performed in Eurodollar futures on Thursday. Block trades are privately negotiated transactions performed off the trading floor, but cleared by the exchange, and reported minutes later on the CME website.
The locals were upset because they weren’t able to participate in the trade, brokers said.
We’re reaching out to our trader contacts in Chicago for more on this story.
“This has been going on for years,” one trader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Business Insider in a telephone interview. “The pit traders aren’t privy to the information and that’s the biggest gripe.”
The problem, he explained, is block trades are not in real-time and that there’s a delay that lasts several minutes so “you are so behind the curve.”
“When you get blindsided or T-boned ‘What just traded? Sweet Jesus!’ The delay — minutes by minutes — people can lose a lot of money.”
He explained that it’s not a level playing field for the traders in a pit because it’s “not a transparent market.”
“What are they doing? They’re just patsies making markets. This is not what open outcry markets are about.”
What’s more is the trader we spoke to said the Eurodollar is the reason it’s picking up steam today.
“The Eurodollar is the busiest pit with the most volume. As much as traders bitched and moaned, now the Eurodollar with the media present really made a splash,” the trader told us.
Here’s something interesting we noticed. Two other traders we spoke to had similar comments about the locals’ actions today comparing floor traders to “dinosaurs.”
Here’s one response:
“Dumb? Dunno but this dinosaur left the tar pit a long time ago
Where r they going? Cog hill?”
Here’s another.
“I think it’s just a sign of the times that the floor trader is probably becoming a dinosaur,” an independent commodities trader told us. “It’s the last bastion in the pit. Option locals make money off the bid-ask. In theory, if they manage positions they get paid on volume and when volume doesn’t come to the pit, their ability to make profit is hindered. It’s a sign that the pit trader is rapidly becoming extinct.”
In the meantime, check out CNBC’s Rick Santelli discuss today’s protests on the “Santelli Exchange.”
Comments »
Secret Service Members Suspended for Public Haggling With Prostitutes
AFFIDAVIT: Trayvon Martin Tried To Run Home, But George Zimmerman Chased Him Down
Monsanto Sued for Poisoning Farmers
“A lawsuit filed this week claims that the Monsanto corporation, “motivated by a desire for unwarranted economic gain,” knowingly poisoned farmers that were pressured to use the company’s chemicals.
Farmers from Argentina claim that agricultural giant Monsanto, along with Philip Morris and other major American tobacco companies, asked them to use chemicals on their crops that caused “devastating birth defects.” The plaintiffs say that the corporations being included in the suit were aware of the implications but failed to warn the farmers, instead acting “by a desire for unwarranted economic gain and profit.”
In the suit, filed this week at New Castle County Court in the state of Delaware, Monsanto, Philip Morris and others are said to have “wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.” A 55-page complaint filed in court alleges that those chemicals caused conditions to develop that include cerebral palsy, epilepsy, spina bifida, congenital heart defects, Down syndrome, missing fingers and blindness.
Monsanto, who is no stranger to legal trouble, is named in the suit along with Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf Tobacco, Universal Corporation fka Universal Leaf Tobacco Company and others.
The plaintiffs in the suit — growers from mostly small, family-owned farms in Misiones Province, Argentina — say they were asked to use herbicides and pesticide produced by Monsanto that were proven to be poisonous. Many farmers insist that they were driven to replace native tobacco crops with a variant favored by Philip Morris which required more pesticides to harvest. From there they were pushed to use Roundup, a Monsanto-made herbicide that, while successful in killing weeds, has ghastly side effects due to its large concentration of the chemical glyphosate.
“Monsanto defendants, the Philip Morris defendants, and the Carolina Leaf defendants promoted the use of Roundup and other herbicides to tobacco farmers in Misiones even though they were on direct and explicit notice that at all relevant times farmers in Misiones, including the instant plaintiffs, lacked the necessary personal protective equipment and other safety knowledge and skills required to minimize harmful exposures to Roundup,” the complaint claims…”
Comments »Mike Tyson on George Zimmerman: ‘It’s a disgrace he hasn’t been shot yet’
How Not to Text While Walking
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPJVe39_kGQ 450 300]
Comments »Insurance Companies Run & Hide From’ Biblical Weather’
In fact computer models caused insurance companies to drop long standing on time customers in many areas of the country years ago…
Comments »
