Everyone is waiting on the fed
Comments »Monthly Archives: September 2011
STATE OF THE UNION: Child Brings Mom’s Crack Pipe For Show-And-Tell
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SWEET SPRINGS, Mo. (CBS St. Louis) –– A recent show-and-tell at a northwest Missouri elementary school resembled something out of an episode of “Breaking Bad,” leading to the arrest of a kindergartner’s mother.
Michelle Marie Cheatham, 32, was arrested on Sept. 6 after her son pulled out methamphetamine and his mother’s crack pipe during a show-and-tell for his kindergarten class, according to a felony complaint filed in the Saline County Circuit Court. Later that day, a search warrant was obtained by the Sweet Springs police to conduct a search at Cheatham’s home, which led to the police reportedly recovering a crack pipe and a butane lighter, according to the Marshall Democrat-News.
Comments »THE GILDED ERA: DOJ Spends $16 per Muffin, $10 per Cookie and $8 per Coffee
Good thing these fuckers are cutting back on spending, else we might go bankrupt.
Comments »Asian Markets Trade Up on European Debt Enthusiasm
Oracle Expects Better Than Expected Q2 Results
Greece Reports Progress But No Deal Yet
Japan’s Exports Rise Half of What Was Expected
Nikkei Gaps Up Slightly, Then Fades, Then Rallies
Commodities Crushed, Year to Date
Enter deflationary vortex.
No. Ticker YTD Return Watchlist
1 URA -53.98 Raw Commodities Index
2 LIT -27.66 Raw Commodities Index
3 KOL -22.16 Raw Commodities Index
4 UNG -20.53 Raw Commodities Index
5 JJC -18.58 Raw Commodities Index
6 JJT -18.01 Raw Commodities Index
7 JJN -15.66 Raw Commodities Index
8 USO -14.31 Raw Commodities Index
9 NIB -11.88 Raw Commodities Index
10 PALL -11.39 Raw Commodities Index
11 BAL -11.38 Raw Commodities Index
12 COW -3.12 Raw Commodities Index
13 DBA -1.89 Raw Commodities Index
14 PGM -1.34 Raw Commodities Index
15 FUE -0.85 Raw Commodities Index
16 SGG 0.04 Raw Commodities Index
17 JO 3.70 Raw Commodities Index
18 UGA 16.20 Raw Commodities Index
19 CORN 16.76 Raw Commodities Index
20 GLD 26.64 Raw Commodities Index
21 SLV 28.60 Raw Commodities Index
EARTH TO GOP
They just penned a letter to Bernanke, in an effort to stop him from implementing QE3. They cite the need to preserve the strength of the US dollar. What they fail to acknowledge is a weaker dollar is beneficial to US exporters. And, moreover, the dollar is barely down over the past two years.
3 month dollar return: +1.9%
6 month dollar return: +0.64%
1 year dollar return: -7.24%
2 year dollar return: -3.95%
Comparatively, the euro is -7.16% over the past two years.
Political bullshit.
Comments »LOL at 15 Chinese Burrito Stocks that were CRUUUUSHED Today
No. Ticker % Change Industry
1 GU -17.39 Chinese Burritos
2 SINA -15.00 Chinese Burritos
3 DATE -11.57 Chinese Burritos
4 VIT -10.60 Chinese Burritos
5 ASIA -10.05 Chinese Burritos
6 SPU -9.68 Chinese Burritos
7 DANG -9.10 Chinese Burritos
8 RENN -8.31 Chinese Burritos
9 CGA -8.21 Chinese Burritos
10 QIHU -7.68 Chinese Burritos
11 FEED -7.59 Chinese Burritos
12 HPJ -7.25 Chinese Burritos
13 ZNH -7.24 Chinese Burritos
14 OINK -7.04 Chinese Burritos
15 CIS -5.84 Chinese Burritos
FLASH: Idiot Republicans Send Letter to Bernanke
Early Afternoon Fun: Say What Baby….You Do What You Want For Show & Tell
Bet she was a welfare recipient too
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1Y0eJ_L5pw 450 300] [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcpFdUxGPBU 450 300] Comments »Obama Stimulus Failed Because It Was a Pygmy Package
So if we wasted even more money then it would have been a success ?
Targeted stimulus was what was needed.
Comments »Copper Prices Looking Lofty
I say let them fall as it will help with a rebound for struggling economies.
Comments »Bond Trading Revenues To Be FUGLY Next Q
Sell now buy later; earnings all around should be horrible for the banking sector…IMO
Comments »GM and UAW Strike a Deal Worth 6k Jobs
Community Banks Pitch Regulators a Moratorium on Big Bank Mergers
There used to be a law that banks could not grow based on acquisition only. But Bernanke fought to supersede this law for BofA a few years back when a congressional committee questioned if BofA should be allowed to make said acquisition.
Comments »WASTE: $16 Muffins, $10 Cookies in Government Agency
H/T @macroQmicro
The Justice Department spent more than $120 million in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to host law enforcement conferences across the country, many of which featured “extravagant and wasteful” costs for food, beverages and event planning, including spending $16 on each of 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington, D.C., a report said Tuesday.
Acting Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, in an audit report that examined taxpayer expenditures incurred by the Justice Department at 10 of 1,832 conferences held during fiscal 2008 and 2009, said investigators also found that another conference featured a lunch that cost $76 per person and coffee costing more than $1 per ounce. Other costly items cited in the report included a $32-per-person snack break consisting of Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars, $7.32 Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres, $10 cookies and $5 Swedish meatballs.
The numbers are included in a report that examined expenditures incurred by the Justice Department during fiscal 2008 and 2009 following a 2007 audit by the Inspector General’s Office that also identified what it described at the time as “extravagant costs associated with food and beverages and event planning activities.” The new report said that while it found that the Justice Department had instituted conference cost guidelines since the 2007 report, individual components within the agency “are not taking all necessary steps to minimize conference-related costs and to eliminate wasteful spending.”
The report noted that the department hosted or participated in 1,832 conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, costing a total of $121 million. The new audit examined 10 conferences that occurred between October 2008 and September 2009 and cost over $4.4 million. It focused on the two major conference cost categories that the September 2007 report revealed as most potentially susceptible to wasteful spending – event planning services and food and beverages.
“Our audit found that two DOJ components, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), spent approximately $600,000 in grant funds to procure event planning services for five conferences without demonstrating that these firms offered the most cost effective logistical services,” Ms. Schnedar said. “The audit also found that neither OJP nor the OVW required event planners to track and report salary and benefit costs.
“As a result, the mandated DOJ conference cost reports submitted to Congress did not include over $500,000 of the $600,000 that it spent on event planning services for the five conferences we examined where event planners were used,” she said.
The audit also identified what it called “unallowable and unnecessary event planning costs,” including the hiring of a consultant as an event planner for one conference who lived in Anchorage, Alaska, to act as the liaison with the conference hotel located in Palm Springs, California. The audit questioned as “unnecessary” nearly $3,500 in Justice Departmentfunds paid to the consultant to travel three times between Alaska and California, especially since the event had been held at the same venue three times previously. Also questioned as unnecessary in the audit were over $29,000 in travel, lodging and food and beverage costs for a face-to-face planning meeting held in Palm Springs in January and February 2008 that was attended by Justice department employees and event planning consultants.
In a response to the Inspector General’s report, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden sent a memo to all department heads saying that as the department works to accomplish its mission, “We must also make certain we do so with a focus on accountability and transparency to the American taxpayers.” He told the department heads to ensure that financial resources are utilized in the most advantageous and responsible manner.
“I want to emphasize the need to maximize our financial resources, ensure we are prudent in our spending, and avoid the fact or appearance of extravagant spending, especially during these challenging financial times,” he said.
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