Bob Morris @ 21:45 Category: Unfiled;
The Alpha Bank & Trust of Alpharetta, GA is officially kaput with Stearns Bank named as receiver. It is the sixteenth bank to be taken over by FDIC this year, who generally announces closures on Fridays after markets have closed.
Bob Morris @ 21:02 Category: Election 2008 Tags: Ashley Todd;
McCain volunteer Ashley Todd tells the police she’s “upset with the media for blowing this into a political firestorm.”
I’m not saying Todd is an operative. But those are not the words of a political innocent with an apparent history of mental illness who just got arrested, having her life go seriously off the tracks, while the national media watched. Someone coached her to say that. It’s classic Rovian spin, blame everyone but yourself, especially the media. But it’s not working for them anymore, is it?
Bob Morris @ 17:17 Category: Election 2008 Tags: Ashley Todd;
John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.
The attack, of course, has been proven to be a hoax. But that didn’t stop the McCain campaign from attempting yet another vicious, racist, baseless slime attack. They really are despicable, aren’t they?
Happily, in just a few more days, the lot of them will slither back into their sewers and the rest of us will no longer have to care about them. Because they will no longer matter.
Bob Morris @ 13:33 Category: Unfiled;
This is for a nice, undamaged home too.
Half of the city’s home sales in 2008 have been for less than $10,000.
Bob Morris @ 10:53 Category: Credit crisis;
Weird. Asia and Europe markets got clobbered last night. Many investors were expecting US markets to do the same, but so far they are holding steady, down 4-5%, but not down 9.6% like the Nikkei was.
Strange days when being down 4% is considered to be not extreme. The poster child of the day for dysfunctional countries is Hungary. Their currency is collapsing. Russia just had their debt downgraded and default is not out of the question. Massive amounts of credit default swaps have been written on Russian and emerging market debt so the fallout from this could (and probably will) hit most anywhere.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) is down 20% so far this year, having lost $50 billion in value. Yikes. No doubt other pension funds have similar losses.
The VIX is a volatility indicator that basically measures fear in the markets. Ordinarily, when a market has been down big and the VIX hits 30, it signals a reversal is coming. In extreme cases, it might have to hit 40-45 before than happens. Well, the VIX has been between 55-96 for all of this month and it could hit the triple digits soon.
Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini explains in this 47 minute talk on Bloomberg why the worst is yet to come.
We are in uncharted territory.
Bob Morris @ 06:26 Category: Renewable energy Tags: electric vehicles;
Australia plans to soon have EV networks with 200,000-250,000 charging stations in their largest cities, with 150 switch stations where batteries can be swapped out quickly. Plus, they will use renewable energy to recharge the batteries. Yes!
Bob Morris @ 01:45 Category: Unfiled Tags: Cuba;
This will make next week’s vote at the U.N. General Assembly, condemning the U.S. policy of embargo and the extraterritorial sanctions embodied in the Helms-Burton Act, even more lonely for the United States. It is quite a prominent dismissal of American interests, something the Europeans do only with considerable deliberation and cause.
Perhaps they assume President Obama will eventually do the same.
It is (way past) time to end the embargo on Cuba.
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