The Internet age continues to wreak its havoc on the Postal Service, which says it could run out of cash by the end of FY 2012 after making a loss of $5.1B last FY. The USPS appears to operate in a dichotomy: it's an independent government entity that barely receives federal cash but it can't undertake major reform without Congressional approval. [View news story]
Add to that environmental disaster those one time use only white boxes they heavily promote. As far as "barely receives federal cash", they have received significant subsidies in the past, although there is a lot of misinformation about this. What is truly killing the USPS is pension obligations, sound familiar?
File under take it with a grain of salt: The WSJ's David Reilly points out Bank of America (BAC -4.4%) CEO Brian Moyhihan is getting into the habit of some very public flip-flips. Just this week, the bank reversed its ill-fated $5 debit card fee before following that up with a plan to float $400M of common stock after repeated declarations the bank didn't need additional capital. Earlier in the year, BofA changed course on mortgage-related settlements and misfired when it told investors a dividend was coming. [View news story]
Yeh, I hardly think $400M would make a dent in tier ratios, if that were the reason.
More on MF Global (MF): The Chapter 11 (reorganization) filing shows assets of $100M-$500M with JPMorgan (JPM) as the biggest creditor, on the hook for $1.2B. The filing came to bear after talks for a purchase by Interactive Brokers (IBKR) broke down. [View news story]
Of the four major US banks, BAC, JPM, WFC, and C, the smartest CEO is Pandit, by far...
If a 50% haircut can be called "voluntary" - thus not triggering CDS payments - swaps are no longer an effective hedge, meaning someone is in trouble. Who? The banks, writes Mike Riddell. Likely net buyers of protection, will their accountants no longer let them use the instruments for this purpose? [View news story]
Insurance on countries? CDS on sovereign debt is a red herring anyway.
S&P throws a grenade into the EU debt debate by warning it would probably cut France's AAA rating, along with the ratings of Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, if the EU falls into a double-dip recession. The damage would be even greater should interest rates rise too. [View news story]
The rating agencies have proven themselves to be irrelevant. They see that France actually is worried about losing it's AAA rating, and are playing this for all it's worth. As in the US case, it won't matter at all. The markets will determine the credit rating of sovereign debt, not the rating agencies.
Wholesale food prices are "on pace to post their strongest annual increase in more than three decades,” National Restaurant Association's Bruce Grindy writes. Food costs are already up 7.8% this year, and if the trend holds, they will have soared 26% in five years. So far, grocers have been passing along more of those increases to customers than restaurants. [View news story]
The biggest jump in food prices occurs at McDonald's. The revenue growth for junk food during a "recession" is very telling. Dinner for four at McD's is around $30. So how does this compare to buying fresh food at the supermarket and actually cooking it, lol?
1984ish news of the day: The EU is considering a ban on the issuance of credit ratings for countries in need of a bailout. "I think it's legitimate to have a special treatment when a country is in negotiation or is covered by a (rescue) program," says eurocrat Michel Barnier, as if whether Spain is Aa2 or Aa3 will change the math of that country's condition. [View news story]
The ratings agencies are full of crap anyway, all they do is create more busy work for everyone.
Federal employees whose compensation averages $126,000 and a heavy concentration of lawyers helps Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metro area. The typical D.C.-area household earned $84,523 in 2010, vs. the national average $50,046. “There’s a gap that’s isolating Washington from the reality of the rest of the country... They just get more and more out of touch." [View news story]
Steve Ballmer's revenge: Microsoft's (MSFT) CEO takes a dig at Yahoo (YHOO), telling an audience in San Francisco that his company was "lucky" Yahoo rejected its blockbuster $44.6B takeover bid back in 2008 just prior to the financial turmoil that ensued. Premarket: YHOO +3.3%, MSFT +0.5%. [View news story]
It's clear that Ballmer is an imbecile, what has MSFT done since 2008 to create their own on-line experience? Nothing.
Shed a tear for suffering Goldman Sachs (GS +5.7%) employees: Compensation expense for the first nine months of this year averaged $292,836 for its 34,200 workers. A year earlier, the firm employed 35,400 people, who received an average $370,706 each for the nine-month period. (Q3 earnings) [View news story]
2.15 million is about 1.5% of the 150 million or so in the workforce. I don't know if this includes the cultists over at the USPS. Unfortunately that 1.5% controls about 25% of the total GDP create by the other 148 million workers. That percentage of GDP, is of course, increasing every year.
Shed a tear for suffering Goldman Sachs (GS +5.7%) employees: Compensation expense for the first nine months of this year averaged $292,836 for its 34,200 workers. A year earlier, the firm employed 35,400 people, who received an average $370,706 each for the nine-month period. (Q3 earnings) [View news story]
What about the Federal government, that has 22,000 employees making over $170,000 per year:
NAHB Housing Market Index: 18 vs. 15 expected, 14 prior. The boost in builder confidence is "a good sign that some pockets of recovery are starting to emerge," NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe says, but "while some builders have shifted their assessment of market conditions from poor to fair, relatively few have shifted their assessments from fair to good." [View news story]
This president claimed he was going to change Washington... he made it worse. Penalize success, subsidize failure. That's Obama's plan for our economy. His vision... a society where there is no bottom and no top.
Occupy Wall Street is an unfocused rage in need of specific policy objectives, Barry Ritholtz writes, suggesting three: no more bailouts, end too-big-to-fail banks, and - most important - get Wall Street Money out of the legislative process. "Campaign finance and lobbying money has so utterly corrupted Congress that we might as well put elected officials up for bid on eBay." [View news story]
Tommy Thornton points out Apple (APPL) accounts for nearly 100 of the 135 point gain in the Nasdaq 100 this year, four times greater than the next best contributor (take a guess ... AMZN). It's truly Apple's world and the rest of tech just lives in it. [View news story]
Right, and AAPL has down nothing to share that success and wealth with the American worker. While JPM directly employs 250,000 people, AAPL has only 50,000, the other million or so are toiling away at Foxconn and the like. Something the Wall Street protesters are more than happy to ignore...
A union representing 280K USPS letter carriers demands its place at the table - hiring investment bankers at Lazard and ex-Obama exec Ron Bloom as discussion on revamping the colossal taxpayer money drain pushes forward. The union's position: "You don't just start taking it apart and shutting out the lights before you know what you can do to grow the business." [View news story]
Unfortunately,.the mentality being what it is, these laid-off postal workers won't think twice going directly to unemployment benefits, and milking the system for all it's worth. My wife started training for the USPS about 5 years ago, and then quit, after being treated harshly and unfairly during the "training". Riding in the "hot box" (back of the truck), during mid-June here in Tucson, so that her "trainer" could finish the shift ASAP. Never mine that my wife was supposed to be driving, never mine she got so sick and dehydrated that she started vomiting. The post office is like a cult, and the training is more like a hazing. And I really believe there are a lot of malcontents working there.
The Internet age continues to wreak its havoc on the Postal Service, which says it could run out of cash by the end of FY 2012 after making a loss of $5.1B last FY. The USPS appears to operate in a dichotomy: it's an independent government entity that barely receives federal cash but it can't undertake major reform without Congressional approval. [View news story]
File under take it with a grain of salt: The WSJ's David Reilly points out Bank of America (BAC -4.4%) CEO Brian Moyhihan is getting into the habit of some very public flip-flips. Just this week, the bank reversed its ill-fated $5 debit card fee before following that up with a plan to float $400M of common stock after repeated declarations the bank didn't need additional capital. Earlier in the year, BofA changed course on mortgage-related settlements and misfired when it told investors a dividend was coming. [View news story]
More on MF Global (MF): The Chapter 11 (reorganization) filing shows assets of $100M-$500M with JPMorgan (JPM) as the biggest creditor, on the hook for $1.2B. The filing came to bear after talks for a purchase by Interactive Brokers (IBKR) broke down. [View news story]
If a 50% haircut can be called "voluntary" - thus not triggering CDS payments - swaps are no longer an effective hedge, meaning someone is in trouble. Who? The banks, writes Mike Riddell. Likely net buyers of protection, will their accountants no longer let them use the instruments for this purpose? [View news story]
S&P throws a grenade into the EU debt debate by warning it would probably cut France's AAA rating, along with the ratings of Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, if the EU falls into a double-dip recession. The damage would be even greater should interest rates rise too.
[View news story]
Wholesale food prices are "on pace to post their strongest annual increase in more than three decades,” National Restaurant Association's Bruce Grindy writes. Food costs are already up 7.8% this year, and if the trend holds, they will have soared 26% in five years. So far, grocers have been passing along more of those increases to customers than restaurants. [View news story]
1984ish news of the day: The EU is considering a ban on the issuance of credit ratings for countries in need of a bailout. "I think it's legitimate to have a special treatment when a country is in negotiation or is covered by a (rescue) program," says eurocrat Michel Barnier, as if whether Spain is Aa2 or Aa3 will change the math of that country's condition. [View news story]
Federal employees whose compensation averages $126,000 and a heavy concentration of lawyers helps Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metro area. The typical D.C.-area household earned $84,523 in 2010, vs. the national average $50,046. “There’s a gap that’s isolating Washington from the reality of the rest of the country... They just get more and more out of touch." [View news story]
Steve Ballmer's revenge: Microsoft's (MSFT) CEO takes a dig at Yahoo (YHOO), telling an audience in San Francisco that his company was "lucky" Yahoo rejected its blockbuster $44.6B takeover bid back in 2008 just prior to the financial turmoil that ensued. Premarket: YHOO +3.3%, MSFT +0.5%. [View news story]
Shed a tear for suffering Goldman Sachs (GS +5.7%) employees: Compensation expense for the first nine months of this year averaged $292,836 for its 34,200 workers. A year earlier, the firm employed 35,400 people, who received an average $370,706 each for the nine-month period. (Q3 earnings) [View news story]
Shed a tear for suffering Goldman Sachs (GS +5.7%) employees: Compensation expense for the first nine months of this year averaged $292,836 for its 34,200 workers. A year earlier, the firm employed 35,400 people, who received an average $370,706 each for the nine-month period. (Q3 earnings) [View news story]
http://bit.ly/qwkjlK
maybe we should be worried about that? Those people have the power, and will do whatever it takes to maintain their fat salaries and benefits.
NAHB Housing Market Index: 18 vs. 15 expected, 14 prior. The boost in builder confidence is "a good sign that some pockets of recovery are starting to emerge," NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe says, but "while some builders have shifted their assessment of market conditions from poor to fair, relatively few have shifted their assessments from fair to good." [View news story]
Occupy Wall Street is an unfocused rage in need of specific policy objectives, Barry Ritholtz writes, suggesting three: no more bailouts, end too-big-to-fail banks, and - most important - get Wall Street Money out of the legislative process. "Campaign finance and lobbying money has so utterly corrupted Congress that we might as well put elected officials up for bid on eBay." [View news story]
Tommy Thornton points out Apple (APPL) accounts for nearly 100 of the 135 point gain in the Nasdaq 100 this year, four times greater than the next best contributor (take a guess ... AMZN). It's truly Apple's world and the rest of tech just lives in it. [View news story]
A union representing 280K USPS letter carriers demands its place at the table - hiring investment bankers at Lazard and ex-Obama exec Ron Bloom as discussion on revamping the colossal taxpayer money drain pushes forward. The union's position: "You don't just start taking it apart and shutting out the lights before you know what you can do to grow the business." [View news story]