Wednesday, Dec 25th
Last update09:45:43 AM GMT
Bruce Enberg
Last week there was a large spike in unemployment claims and it was proclaimed that OBAMA CAUSES THE END OF THE WORLD by the right leaning corporate media. This week the number is down by even more and they are calling that an "unexplained aberration". The five week moving average continues coming down (that's a good thing).
Weekly numbers often need to be corrected later because of delays in the states' reporting data. If there was a holiday that week you can count on it.
Sandy Weill’s name may not be a household word, but it should be. If you want to blame just one man for the banks eating us all alive, he would be the one. As head of Citi-Group (or rather the bank that would become Citi-Group) he pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that had kept the banks in check for 2/3 of the 20th century.
He and others of his ilk were able to sell the idea (or more accurately buy the belief from politicians, the media and so-called experts) that modern bankers knew what they were doing. After all there hadn’t been a banking collapse since the end of the Republican Hoover administration in 1933.
As much of America's heartland turns to desert, at least for this crop year and Texas perhaps permanently, the availability of food comes into question. You might expect that conservative global warming deniers would have a bounty of words to eat.
Sadly, stupidity knows no bounds. They still cling to the weasel words, "you can't link a weather event to global warming". When extreme and formerly rare weather events become the new normal, the bones of that reasoning are just bleaching in the sun.
The AARP is reporting that a large number of seniors are at risk of their homes being foreclosed upon. Gosh you'd think Mittens had stolen their pensions or something. After Bane (I mean Bain, Holy typo Rush), loots a pension plan, the taxpayer picks it up, but pays only pennies on the dollar.
The Bush Crash took a big chunk out of the 401(k) ponzi scheme, and now a lot of people are forced to cash out what's left. They are paying huge penalties for the privilege of using their own money. These people are short of retirement, but have no hope of ever being employed again in the new Flat Earth economy of Ronald Reagan. He built the penalties into 401(k)s, do you see why?
Initial unemployment claims dropped by 26,000 this week to a relatively low number of 350,000. If you weren't aware of that, it is to be forgiven as the main stream media wasn't really interested in telling you about it. They thought you would be more interested in being teased with the idea that Condoleezza Rice was actually being considered as Romney's VP, it's more likely Willard would dig up the corpse of Sarah Palin and run it.
JP Morgan Chase's stock price jumped driving up the stock market, supposedly on "news" that the losses on its derivative trading were "only" 5.8 billion instead of the 9 billion that has been reported. Nine billion is probably not even close to the actual loss, but what the hell, it's only paper. The trading operations of the Wall Street banks are more than big enough to drive the stock market, so what exactly does it matter? Unless you thought you would ever see that money in your 401(k). Sorry, but you probably won't.
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