Arrow Trucking Shutdown Strands Drivers |
Company reportedly negotiating with lenders, Schneider National offers rides to drivers
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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. Read more at www.joc.com |
Warren Buffett tackles bankers’ bonuses |
‘It’s infuriating for people to see their friends losing their jobs, their friends having their homes foreclosed on and no one going to jail’ |
Warren Buffett has given another insight into the thinking that has made him one of the most successful investors ever. |
In a BBC interview, the Sage of Omaha criticised the huge rewards enjoyed by those in the financial industry and called for a more “progressive” taxation system. The second-richest man in the world also sympathised with those who are furious with the bankers who helped to create the financial crisis. |
I get paid enormously, and it’s no great credit to me, I was just lucky at birth. It’s nice to give me a fair amount of the benefits from that but I shouldn’t delude myself into thinking that I’m some superior individual because of that. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
Everyone gets their hands greased. No wonder our country is in the state it is in. Timothy Geithner aides ‘paid millions by Wall Street firms’ |
Timothy Geithner’s aides have been paid millions of dollars by a variety of Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, according to financial disclosure forms. |
The treasury secretary has been tasked with cleaning up Wall Street but it has emerged his key advisors have been earning money from the institutions they are helping to regulate. |
Aide Lee Sachs took more than $3 million in partnership income and salary from New York hedge fund Mariner Investment Group, while advisor Gene Sperling was paid almost $900,000 by Goldman Sachs last year, reports Bloomberg. |
Mr Sperling was also paid more than $150,000 for a variety of speeches he gave to different financial institutions, including the firm run by alleged fraudster Allen Stanford. Read more at www.bobsguide.com |
| Dow Will Fall to 6,300 by Year End: Portfolio Manager |
With the prospect of higher unemployment hanging over the markets, some experts expect a correction. So are they right? Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at Permanent Portfolio Funds, and John Lekas, CEO and portfolio manager at Leader Capital, shared their insights. (See their recommendations, below.) |
“I think we go below the double dip,” Lekas told CNBC. “By year-end, we drop below 6,300 on the Dow and by 2011, we’re at 4,200.” |
Lekas said although Monday’s ISM services index was “neutral,” the unemployment number was at 785,000 last month and that number is expected to worsen. |
“So 26 to 27 million people who are out of work isn’t going to help the economy,” he said. “And until that number gets better, we will not see a recovery.” Read more at www.cnbc.com |
This wisebread blo has some really good info, besides this one on Costco
9 Things That Are Worth Buying at Costco |
We all want to get a good deal when we shop, and warehouse stores are some of the most popular places to make that happen. One of my favorite ones to shop at is Costco. The trouble is, some deals are better than others, especially when large amounts have to be purchased at one time. Here’s a list of some of the items available there that work nicely into our eating style, budget and rate of consumption. |
Ecos Brand Planet-Friendly Laundry Detergent |
Capitalism After the Crisis |
The economic crisis of the past year, centered as it has been in the financial sector that lies at the heart of American capitalism, is bound to leave some lasting marks. Financial regulation, the role of large banks, and the relationships between the government and key players in the market will never be the same. |
Are such changes now beginning? And if so, will they mark only a temporary reaction to an extreme economic downturn, or a deeper and more damaging shift in American attitudes? Some early indications are not encouraging. |
These attitudes are familiar to students of public opinion in much of the world. But they are quite unusual for the United States. Until recently, Americans stood out for their acceptance of basic market principles and even for their tolerance of some of the negative side effects markets produce, such as marked income inequality. Read more at nationalaffairs.com |
While the article seems to take a stab at the Obama administraton, I am taking a stab at all these people in the Wall Street financial industry. All of these finance guys are involved in the largest ponzi and control scheme in the history of modern society. Having heard Douglas Rushkoff speak at Web2Expo it all makes much more sense on how big government and corps try to control society. Currency is simply one instrument in the big ponzi scheme. I just ordered Rushkoff’s book “Life, Inc” which unravels this whole mess and offers some ways that we are normal citizens can win back control.
Financial industry paid millions to Obama aide |
WASHINGTON - Lawrence H. Summers, the top economic adviser to President Obama, earned more than $5 million last year from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money, the White House disclosed Friday in releasing financial information about top officials. |
Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, wields important influence over Mr. Obama’s policy decisions for the troubled financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments. |
Last year, he reported making 40 paid appearances, including a $135,000 speech to the investment firm Goldman Sachs, in addition to his earnings from the hedge fund, a sector the administration is trying to regulate. Read more at www.msnbc.msn.com |
They are known as “quants” because they do quantitative finance. Seduced by a vision of mathematical elegance underlying some of the messiest of human activities, they apply skills they once hoped to use to untangle string theory or the nervous system to making money. |
Still others have opened an academic front, using complexity theory or artificial intelligence to better understand the behavior of humans in markets. In December the physics Web site arXiv.org, where physicists post their papers, added a section for papers on finance. Submissions on subjects like “the superstatistics of labor productivity” and “stochastic volatility models” have been streaming in. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
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Arrow Trucking Shutdown Strands Drivers
