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U.S. lifts $400 billion cap for Fannie, Freddie

Robert Mowery says:

Remember that scene from the old Animal House movie where the frat was on fire and they were singing. “Our House, Our House, Our House is on Fire”

Well just apply that tune to “Our Country, Our Country, Our Country is so financially screwed”.

This just digs us in deeper and the house of cards will tumble!

Amplify’d from www.msnbc.msn.com

U.S. lifts $400 billion cap for Fannie, Freddie

Treasury: Lifeline cap nixed to remove uncertainty of U.S. commitment

WASHINGTON - The government has handed its ATM card to beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Treasury Department said Thursday it removed the $400 billion financial cap on the money it will provide to keep the companies afloat. Already, taxpayers have shelled out $111 billion to the pair, and a senior Treasury official said losses are not expected to exceed the government’s estimate this summer of $170 billion over 10 years.

Treasury Department officials said it will now use a flexible formula to ensure the two agencies can stand behind the billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities they sell to investors. Under the formula, financial support would increase according to how much each firm loses in a quarter. The cap in place at the end of 2012 would apply thereafter.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  1 month ago

Arrow Trucking Shutdown Strands Drivers

Robert Mowery says:

Wow - talk about a shitty business practice. But I will bet anything that those CEO's and execs were home enjoying Christmas Eve with their families while these drivers were left stranded with no way home to theirs. Unreal!
One thing for sure, if more of these trucking companies go under - we can expect food prices and other goods to rise in price, since truckin... read more

Amplify’d from www.joc.com

Arrow Trucking Shutdown Strands Drivers

Company reportedly negotiating with lenders, Schneider National offers rides to drivers

Flatbed carrier Arrow Trucking suspended operations this week, stranding hundreds of drivers around the country on Christmas Eve as the company reportedly tries to get new financing to resume business.

Company drivers learned of the shutdown when the Tulsa, Okla.-based company canceled its fuel credit cards on Tuesday, according to published reports. The company sent workers at its headquarters home Wednesday and by Thursday its phones were not operating and Web site was shut down.

Truckload carrier Schneider National issued a statement Thursday saying its trucks and drivers would offer rides home, “or as close to home as possible,” to an estimated 1,400 drivers who may have been stranded by Arrow’s abrupt action.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  1 month ago

Economic Recovery — Stimulate the Knowledge Economy Not the Old Economy

Robert Mowery says:

This is EXCELLENT and completely on point with what is need and what should be done. We don’t need more roads and bridges, that just causes more pollution. We need better preparation for the future ahead.

Amplify’d from online.wsj.com
  • OPINION
  • DECEMBER 25, 2009, 10:05 P.M. ET

Put Down That Shovel!

Forget old-fashioned infrastructure. Here are six government projects to foster a lasting economic recovery.

The House has passed a $154 billion jobs bill, and the administration has announced a plan to spend $50 billion of repaid TARP money to “create” jobs—this time its green jobs, “shovel ready” infrastructure projects ($27.5 billion for highway construction and repair) and a tax credit for small businesses.

More infrastructure? Recycling Great Depression-era projects is lame. My advice? Put down that shovel! It’s time to try something else.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  1 month ago

Blogger Loses Unemployment Benefits Over $238 In Adsense Pay

Robert Mowery says:

Dumbass StateGovernment.

Amplify’d from www.mediabistro.com

Blogger Loses Unemployment Benefits Over $238 In Adsense Pay

Ridiculous, but this is the world we live in: rules and regs are stuck in an era where the Internet doesn’t exist.

A laid-off attorney (going by “Karin”) started a blog posting about meal specials in St. Louis. She signed up for Google Adsense, the service that pays bloggers and webmasters to host ads on their sites. After three months of blogging and receiving unemployment benefits (at $405 a week), she received a check from Google.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  1 month ago

Hunger, family homelessness on rise in U.S. cities

Robert Mowery says:

You would think with that since the recession was going on prior to spring of 2009, that the government would have stopped the "paying farmers not to farm" and allowed a large influx of food to be readily available for those in need. Likewise you would think all the $$ we keep sending abroad to keep countries from fighting one another would be reallocated to help... read more

Amplify’d from www.reuters.com

Hunger, family homelessness on rise in U.S. cities

Catarino Ruiz (L) helps feed his children Gilberto Ruiz, 3, and Hector Ruiz, 19 months old, as they sit at a table on skid row eating an early Thanksgiving meal served to homeless and others in downtown Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Mission November 25, 2009. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Hunger is spreading while the number of homeless families is increasing as a result of the recession and other factors, according to a report on Tuesday.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors said cities reported a 26 percent jump in demand for hunger assistance over the past year, the largest average increase since 1991.

Middle-class families as well as the uninsured, elderly, working poor and homeless increasingly looked for help with hunger, which was mainly fueled by unemployment, high housing costs and low wages.

The 2009 report is based on a survey of 27 cities, including Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco, that comprise the group’s task force on hunger and homelessness.

Looking ahead to 2010, cities said they expect it will be difficult to meet increased demands for food due to the impact of state and local budget cuts, a decrease in grocery store donations and higher food costs.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago

‘Sometimes I think, was it real?’ The American bailout nightmare

Amplify’d from business.timesonline.co.uk

‘Sometimes I think, was it real?’ The American bailout nightmare

Neel Kashkari

“We had to project confidence, hold up the world,” Neel Kashkari recalls. “We couldn’t admit how scared we were, or how uncertain”

The architect of America’s banking bailout has revealed for the first time the chaos behind the scenes at the US Treasury during the creation of the controversial $700 billion (£425 billion) Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp).

Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old banker picked by Hank Paulson, then Treasury Secretary, to design the Tarp, described how one colleague screamed in panic over the imploding financial system, while another almost died of heart problems because he worked on the bailout rather than seeking medical treatment.

Mr Kashkari admitted that he plucked “a number out of the air” when deciding with Mr Paulson how much funding to request from Congress for the Tarp.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago

Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades

Robert Mowery says:

Wow! You have to wonder as well they number of people who still could utilize this and living just above the poverty level, yet don't qualify. Thinking about senior citizens and others who struggle to pay prescriptions and try to find money for food. Likewise you have to wonder with all the layoffs and those running out of benefits who still are unemployed, are ... read more

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com
Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades

A GROWING NEED FOR A PROGRAM ONCE SCORNED Greg Dawson and his wife, Sheila, of Martinsville, Ohio, help feed their family of seven with a $300 monthly food stamp benefit. Center and right, the food pantry in Lebanon, Ohio, where residents can also enroll in what is formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. More Photos >

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago

Selling Her Plasma to Pay the Bills

Robert Mowery says:

Unless something really rebounds soon, there is going to be a lot of chaos across the US as people run out of unemployment and need to find the basics to survive. It is a sad situation all across the US and it sounds like across the globe.

Amplify’d from www.msnbc.msn.com

Long-term unemployed face dwindling options 

Instead of working on RVs, she may be living in one soon as benefits run out
At 58, she’s been out of work for two years after decades of working in the RV industry. The irony is that she soon may be living in an RV.

“This is the longest not being able to find a job I’ve ever been through,” she said. “I never, never in a million years expected to be this long unemployed. I have a lot of skills. I have a lot of history. I have an associate’s degree. I can’t even get a job cleaning rooms at a local motel.”

Signs of life in the RV industry here are welcome news for the few hundred workers recently called back to a handful of manufacturing lines. But for Covey, along with many of the more than 14,000 other jobless workers in Elkhart County — and nearly 16 million nationwide — life remains a day-to-day struggle.Read more at www.msnbc.msn.com
 
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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago

Militia movement resurfaces across nation

Robert Mowery says:

I wonder if there is a business opp here. I think should form my own militia, declare myself a 4 star general of it, then charge people a yearly fee to join. I can then sell all kinds of cool merchandise(uniforms with special patches, walking sticks, survival kits, etc) and charge people for their rank they want (with limited numbers/editions to the highest bi... read more

Amplify’d from www.msnbc.msn.com

Militia movement resurfaces across nation

Resurgence in part coincides with the arrival of Obama administration

NIKISKI, Alaska - Norm Olson’s genial tone belies his reputation as a radical militiaman, yet here he is, at 63, an affable grandfather explaining why Americans should arm themselves against their government.

Walking stick in hand, clad in military fatigues, he strolls a trail in the woods near his home, located on 22 acres near Nikiski, a small, unincorporated community with isolated roads and no local government. The nearest state trooper post is two towns away.

A fellow militiaman, armed with an assault rifle, walks along as Olson — a man whose conspiracy theories were so extreme that he was kicked out of the group he founded, the Michigan Militia, 15 years ago — discourses on the need for a paramilitary Alaska Citizens Militia.

Ray Southwell and Norm Olson, members of the Alaska Citizens Militia
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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago

‘Glitch’ could cut jobless benefits for a million

Amplify’d from www.msnbc.msn.com

‘Glitch’ could cut jobless benefits for a million

Congress must act before Christmas for extended subsidy to take effect

About one million laid-off workers will see their unemployment benefits end in January unless Congress acts quickly to renew existing federally paid extensions, according to a new report and legislators and state officials.

The record-long extension of emergency benefits that was hastily signed into law on Nov. 6 was widely praised as an essential lifeline for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had spent a year or more in fruitless searches for jobs.

The new law provided up to 14 weeks of federally paid aid to unemployed people who had exhausted existing state and federal limits, benefits that already ranged up to 79 weeks in many states. And for the majority of states with particularly high unemployment, it added on an additional six weeks of payments, bring the potential total to 99 weeks.

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Posted by Robert Mowery  2 months ago