“Debit cards issued to provide assistance to welfare recipients were used to withdraw cash at ATMs in strip clubs, casinos, bingo halls and amusement parks, a 9News investigation found.

As a result, more than $1 million in welfare funds goes to ATM owners and banks through transaction fees every year.

“When you see the type of obvious abuses that you’ve shown, it says there are people on welfare that should not be,” said Jon Caldara of the conservative watchdog group Independence Institute.

The 9News investigation included the review of 222,000 transactions involving Colorado Quest cards, the state-issued debit cards welfare recipients use to access cash at ATMs. The transactions occurred during a six-month period in 2011 involving a total of $8.1 million in ATM withdrawals…”

Full article

On foreign policy….

Author PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term.  He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.  He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington;  Alienation and the Soviet Economyand Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

“A judge has cleared the way for an Alabama county to move forward with the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, overruling Wall Street claims that state law didn’t allow the county to file the case.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Bennett issued his order late Sunday, allowing Jefferson County, the state’s largest county, to remain in bankruptcy as it attempts to sort out more than $4 billion debt linked to borrowing for the county’s sewer system.

Bennett’s decision could be reviewed by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which already has been asked to consider another question in the case….”

Read More

What about Stockton CA ?

Source

“By Walter Kurtz, Sober Look

The mounting debt from student loans is quickly becoming a national problem in the US. The statistics are staggering.

“The Huffington Post: Bernanke’s son’s case is a high-profile example of what is a nationwide epidemic: mounting debt from student loans. College graduates from the class of 2010 carried an average of $25,250 in student loan debt, and the nation’s total student debt almost reaches $1 trillion: This is a 14-fold increase from 15 years ago and dwarfs the country’s credit card debt, which is just shy of $800 billion.”

But what’s more alarming is that over a third of that is funded directly by the federal government. The chart below (from the Fed) shows the growth in student loans held by the US government. In fact the bulk of the growth in consumer credit we’ve seen recently comes from these increases in federally held student loans.

Student Loans Held by the Federal Governemnt

The borrowers under these federal programs qualify for Income-Based Repayment, a system that allows repayment over an extremely long period of time – similar to a mortgage but with no assets to back it up. There are also provisions that allow for partial principal forgiveness.

Up-to-date student loan default rate data is hard to come by but the trend is not good.

Source

“These interest cost estimates assume Congress extends several current policies, such as the Bush-era tax cuts. They also assume reduced spending on overseas contingency operations.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Interest rates on U.S. bonds may be ridiculously low, but that doesn’t mean the country’s future interest payments on the national debt will be.

Uncle Sam will shell out more than $5 trillion in interest payments over the next decade, according to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office…”

“Increasingly, millions of older Americans cannot keep up with even basic living expenses, according to new research.

Seniors in the Northeast and Southeast are the hardest hit, but in none of the 50 states do median incomes rise enough to meet the Elder Index, a comprehensive measure of what it takes to finance basic living costs, reports Washington, D.C. think tank Wider Opportunities for Women.

With a median income gap of $10,248, seniors in Massachusetts are more likely to face economic insecurity than in any other state, followed by seniors in D.C., New York, Hawaii, Connecticut and New Jersey….”

Read more

Typically I don’t copy and paste whole article. But this shit really pissed me off.

A Hawaiian mom says she was humiliated when asked to prove her breast pump was real at an airport.

The woman says she was flagged for additional screening at the Lihue Airport Wednesday because of her electric breast feeding pump.

She claims agents told her she couldn’t take the pump on the plane because the bottles in her carry-on were empty.

“I asked him if there was a private place I could pump and he said no, you can go in the women’s bathroom. I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks and pump my breast in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom. I was embarrassed and humiliated and then angry that I was treated this way.

When the bottles were full, she was allowed back on the plane.

The TSA is apologizing, saying the agent made a mistake.

The agency released a statement, saying in part: “We accept responsibility for the apparent misunderstanding and any inconvenience or embarrassment this incident may have caused her.”

The TSA recently changed screening procedures to allow women to carry breast milk onto planes without testing it.
However, breast pumps may require additional screening.

Source

Lihue, HI (KITV) — A Hawaiian mom says she was humiliated when asked to prove her breast pump was real at an airport.

The woman says she was flagged for additional screening at the Lihue Airport Wednesday because of her electric breast feeding pump.

She claims agents told her she couldn’t take the pump on the plane because the bottles in her carry-on were empty.

“I asked him if there was a private place I could pump and he said no, you can go in the women’s bathroom. I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks and pump my breast in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom. I was embarrassed and humiliated and then angry that I was treated this way.

When the bottles were full, she was allowed back on the plane.

The TSA is apologizing, saying the agent made a mistake.

The agency released a statement, saying in part: “We accept responsibility for the apparent misunderstanding and any inconvenience or embarrassment this incident may have caused her.”

The TSA recently changed screening procedures to allow women to carry breast milk onto planes without testing it.
However, breast pumps may require additional screening.

KITV

SOURCE 

“Wait til they see what happens March 1st.”

Full Article

I like hitting bids…..

The letter came as the Fed was launching a “stress test” to decide whether the biggest U.S. financial firms could pay out dividends and buy back their shares instead of putting aside that money as capital. It was one of the central bank’s most critical oversight decisions in the wake of the financial crisis.

“We strongly encourage” that the Fed “delay any dividends or compensation increases until they can show” that their earnings are strong and their assets sound, she wrote. Given the continued uncertainty in the markets, “we do not believe it is the right time to allow transactions that will weaken their capital and liquidity positions.”

Four months later, the Federal Reserve rejected Bair’s appeal.

In March 2011, the Federal Reserve green-lighted most of the top 19 financial institutions to deliver tens of billions of dollars to shareholders, including many of their own top executives. The 19 paid out $33 billion in the first nine months of 2011 in dividends and stock buy-backs.

That $33 billion is money that the banks don’t have to cushion themselves — and the broader financial system — should the euro crisis cause a new recession, tensions with Iran flare into war and disrupt the oil supply, or another crisis emerge.

This is the first in-depth account of the Fed’s momentous decision and the fractious battles that led to it. It is based on dozens of interviews, most with people who spoke on condition of anonymity, and on documents, some of which have never been made public. By examining the decision, this account also sheds light on the inner workings of one of the most powerful but secretive economic institutions in the world.

Read the rest here.

Suspicious package found at Rush’s Florida mansion.

The bomb squad has been called in.

He was having a friendly debate with a liberal at a local bar.

Full article

Source

By Walter Kurtz, Sober Look

There is a great deal of discussion in the market about the dislocation between US equities and treasuries. It is somewhat surprising that people are only now starting to focus on the issue – the divergence has been visible for quite some time andwas discussed here.

But another divergence which is quite striking exists now between corporate bond spreads and treasury yields. The chart below compares the investment grade CDX (index CDS) with the 10-year treasury yields.

The treasury market continues to trade with a built in “Europe risk premium“. Some managers hold treasuries as a hedge against European surprises – a strategy that has worked quite well recently (as opposed to equity index puts). But this divergence is not sustainable in the long term and treasury yields should startrising later this year.

They are saying he died from “natural causes” at the age of 43. WTF is that supposed to mean? How does one die from “natural causes” at 43?

He was just tweeting 6 hours ago. They said he died shortly after midnight; but these tweets happened after 3am?!

UPDATE: Nevermind, he lived in California. Therefore, he must have died right after that tweet below.

Young adults suffer a 46% jobless rate….

Anything to lessen the grip of the too big to fail…but then again they will just prey overseas; especially in emerging markets.

What else would he say ?

You are welcome.

Click on Bernanke’s beard below to access live stream.

How stupid can you be?

Full article