Companies House filings show that Mr Murdoch stepped down from the boards of the NI Group, Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp Investments in the UK last week. He also quit a number of News Corp’s US boards, the details of which have yet to be disclosed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Read the article here.
Comments »The Marsh-Newnam partnership has all the makings of a grassroots business story that — stitched with thousands of others — could aid an American jobs revival. Except for one thing: Marsh isn’t hiring. He’s being killed by unemployment taxes that are on their way to quadrupling since 2009. When new business comes calling, Marsh says, “I have to ask myself if there’s another way to meet production needs without adding employees.” He would rather pay overtime than shell out a per-worker tax of $900 (up from $270 three years ago) that is slated to rise to about $1,100 in 2014.
Read the rest here.
Comments »The presidential election has given us two myths about the rich. First, that their incomes, and income inequality, are at all-time highs. Second, that the wealthy pay less in taxes than ever, and lower taxesthan the rest of us.
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, however, suggests that both may be false.
Read the rest here.
Comments »via CNBC.com
The sluggish economy is prompting more Americans to put off medical tests, prescriptions and so-called elective procedures—like knee or hip replacements—and related health care companies are feeling the pain.
Many patients are deciding to delay testing or treatment either because they lack insurance, face higher out-of-pocket costs or are afraid to take time off work, health care analysts say.
“One of the more the dramatic shifts in this economy has been a slowdown in health-care consumption,” says economist Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial. “It’s become discretionary spending in the U.S. because people are really pulling back.”
Ask a patient about going without care and the word discretionary takes on new meaning.
“I waited a long time to get Neupogen injections because it was so expensive,” said Mary Laidman, breast cancer survivor. “It was supposed to increase my white cell count during chemotherapy. Insurance didn’t cover it, and it was about $6,000 out-of-pocket.”
READ THE REST HERE
Comments »“Submitted by Keith Weiner of ‘Gold and Silver and Money and Credit’ blog,
I have written other pieces on the topic of fractional reserve banking (http://keithweiner.posterous.com/61391483 andhttp://keithweiner.posterous.com/fractional-reserve-is-not-the-problem) duration mismatch, which is when someone borrows short-term money to lend long-term and how falling interest rates actually encourages duration mismatch (http://keithweiner.posterous.com/falling-interest-rates-and-duration-mis…).
Falling interest rates are a feature of our current monetary regime, so central that any look at a graph of 10-year Treasury yields shows that it is a ratchet (and a racket, but that is a topic for another day!). There are corrections, but over 31 years the rate of interest has been falling too steadily and for too long to be the product of random chance. It is a salient, if not the central fact, of life in the irredeemable US dollar system, as I have written (http://keithweiner.posterous.com/irredeemable-paper-money-feature-451).”
Comments »“The rats everywhere are now jumping furiously off the titanic, but few had taken the time to write a letter explaining in detail just how cracked and broken the hull really was. This has now changed, with the departure of Peter Doyle, formerly a division chief in the IMF’s European Department responsible for non-crisis countries and currently an adviser to the Fund. Not content with quietly slinking off the scandal ridden organization which has become the butt of all jokes in the international community,”
Comments »“James K. Galbraith is a chip off the old block. This University of Texas economist, the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, is continuing the family tradition of sticking the damn truth in front of the world by means of writing this just published volume–Inequality and Instability, A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis (Oxford University Press).
Better consult it’s theme that finance has come to dominate the U.S. economy, not manufacturing, not agriculture and that the super wealthy have used finance to make themselves richer and faster than anyone else. Writes Galbraith pointedly: “the difference between the financial sector and other sources of income is– wherever we can isolate it– a large (and even prime) source of changing inequalities.”
Comments »Not likely to save the planet, but perhaps they could ease the burden of plastic garbage everywhere.
The funny thing is companies like SodaStream have been around for 30 years or more. I remember as a child making my own soda with relatives across Europe. They had always praised the fact that it eased the burden of waste. They also recycled back then. You have to wonder who pushed the throw away society idea. Fucking DUMB ASSES!
At any rate, SodaStream has a vision to dispose of unwanted plastic littering up the beauty of this planet. Let’s hope they succeed.
Comments »The CO theater shooting is tragic. Plain and simple it is a window into the nature of human flaws and a society at large that in some strange way contributes, to this shocking and disgusting behavior.
Does this mean we should ban guns or have more gun control ?
That is a yes and no answer.
Some will have us do away with guns all together. While others advocate stricter gun laws.
Many blogs and newspapers are already saying that this recent tragedy will not change the system and that the gun lobby will squash any uprising….and so it should be.
Don’t get me wrong here, i do not condone the sale of automatic weapons to citizens in highly dense populated areas, but more gun control will not change the outcome of human flaws or insane behavior.
People will do what they will do, and unfortunately there is always one rotten apple in the barrel.
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Sabotage is expected for an explosion of an oil pipeline in Iraq. The pipeline carries oil directly to the Mediterranean. No one was hurt. Call me nuts, but this reminds me of oil spikes that came after Nigerian pipeline “attacks”.
Comments »A historic drought continues to plague America’s farms causing corn crop yields to plunge and prices to surge.
However, investors are left wondering if they can capitalize on the phenomenon.
Waverly Advisors recently tackled the question.
Tactical Q&A: Grains –Too Late to Go Long?
Comments »This article contends that America is heading towards a nation of ghost towns. Granted we have been on the downtrend, but let us all pray for the American spirit and ingenuity to accelerate us out of these ‘hellholes’.
Comments »Valencia Spain is known for their orange groves, but this small provence or state in Spain spooked the markets yesterday as they asked for another bailout. Valencia needs to repay 2.85 billion Euros by year end. While that figure is small compared to all the other bailouts we hear about, it was enough to spook already on edge investors yesterday. Also it shows that despite the efforts of the ECB, investors are keen to the fact that no true solution is available for so many troubled debt laden countries in Europe.
Comments »Bid rigging in the muni markets has Phillip D. Murphy in hot water as he was accused of a far reaching conspiracy.
Comments »Dimon scooped up $17 million of common shares while selling $13.5 million of preferred shares recently.
Dimon and a LLC linked to him took advantage of a 24% drop in the stock after a huge derivative loss was announced last month.
Comments »“Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ), the second- biggest U.S. stock exchange owner, revamped its proposal to compensate brokers that lost money in the public debut of Facebook Inc. (FB), boosting the payout to $62 million cash.
The amendment, which follows criticism from Wall Street market makers and exchanges about the original plan, increases the compensation pool from $40 million and does away with a proposal to credit most of the money through reduced trading costs, according to a submission with Securities and Exchange Commission. Member brokers who accommodated customers will get paid first, it said.”
Comments »The human reflex to find cause, meaning and lessons in the detritus of a massacre – and to impose a solution on the chaos based on those findings – should be trusted only to the extent that it allows us to muddle through the confusion churned up by such a crazed act. As we recover from the initial shock, we revert to our fundamental and irresolvable arguments about freedom and individuality, which aren’t very good at explaining why people shoot or dynamite innocents – or at stopping them from doing so.
Read the rest here.
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