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moparkid25 wrote:
Quote:GTO Man wrote:Quote:‘Live Like You Mean It’What do you think of the new State slogan?
Dumb. Something like “Wisconsin – Illinois’ largest state park” would have been a more accurate quote :whistle:
:laugh:
circletrack wrote:
Quote:It looks like our President is now involved and hoping to block the bonuses from happening! That I like and very much appreciate!I found an article about it:
Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama’s economic recovery agenda.“In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
Later in the day, a White House official disclosed that the administration would use a pending $30 billion installment for A.I.G. to recoup the $165 million in retention payments to A.I.G. employees in the business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
“Treasury will be using this facility to address the excessive retention payments made to the A.I.G. Financial Products employees, which Treasury found to be completely unacceptable given that A.I.G. is already surviving on taxpayer funds,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Treasury will be adding provisions to its new facility aimed at making taxpayers whole for the amounts of the offensive payments.”
Several repayment options were being considered, the official added.
In strongly worded remarks delivered in the White House East Room before small business owners, Mr. Obama called A.I.G. “a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.”
“Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses at all, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Mr. Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”
White House officials said that the administration is not looking to take A.I.G. to court to stop the company from paying out the bonuses. But they said the Treasury Department would be trying to figure out what it can do to block A.I.G. from making the payments within the legal confines of A.I.G.’s contractual obligations to the executives.
“All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses,” said Mr. Obama, who called the issue one of “fundamental values.”
“All they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules,” he said, adding that the troubles with A.I.G. underscored the need for broad regulatory reform “so we don’t find ourselves in this position again.” His remarks were interrupted several times by applause from the audience of small-business owners.
The sharp presidential rebuke of A.I.G. is part of the White House effort to distance itself from abuses that could feed potentially disruptive public anger. Mr. Obama’s aides are worried that such anger could make it more difficult to win Congressional approval for the additional bailout packages that Mr. Obama has signaled may be necessary to stabilize the banking system. Already there have been moves in Congress to limit compensation for executives at banks and Wall Street firms that are receiving government help to survive.
Still, the president’s directive to his Treasury secretary to “pursue every legal avenue” against the payments seemed to conflict with statements over the weekend from the Treasury Department and from Lawrence H. Summers, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser in the White House, that the Treasury already had reviewed its legal options and concluded the administration had no power to stop the payments .
“We are a country of law,” Mr. Summers said on ABC-TV’s Sunday show. “This Week”:There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system,”
But increasing the pressure on A.I.G., New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that he would issue subpoenas to make the insurer release the names of the executives in its Financial Products subsidiary who received the bonuses, which were paid on Friday; their job descriptions, and details about their performance. In a letter to Edward M. Liddy, the company’s current chief executive, Mr. Cuomo said that if he did not receive the information by 4 p.m. he would issue subpoenas demanding compliance. After that deadline passed, Mr. Cuomo said that he had not received information he was seeking and would issue subpoenas for the data.
“I believe in transparency and disclosure,” Mr. Cuomo said on a conference call. “We believe taxpayers have a right to know.”
A.I.G. executives say that they are contractually obligated to pay the bonuses to their executives, including those who are part of the A.I.G. division where the company’s crisis originated.
The government’s rescue of the insurer began last fall with the Federal Reserve’s $85 billion emergency loan. The taxpayer assistance has now grown to $170 billion, and the government owns nearly 80 percent of the company. On Sunday, the company disclosed the names of dozens of financial institutions that benefited from the bailout money injected into A.I.G. that the insurer then paid out to satisfy financial contracts.
Jackie Calmes contributed reporting.
I like how we have a wide range of viewpoints and experiences on this topic. On the one hand, some people have had nothing but die hard loyalty to the big 3 because of their personal experience of reliability. On the other hand, others have had terrible experiences and consequently have turned to the reliability and quality of makers such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. I think the Consumer Reports is an important tool and measure but also personal experience certainly is a factor
Do you know what these jobs will entail? Perhaps upgrading broadband coverage with the ARRA funding?
Speaking of alternatives, here’s a way to ditch cable and satellite all together
Maybe have a requirement for a certain number of club cars present in order to qualify for the club award?
Amigo2k wrote:
Quote:1940 Buick SPECIAL (sold 15k)Link: http://tr.im/gTa8
[img]http://i16.ebayimg.com/04/i/001/34/88/f1a7_12.JPG[/img]
This Buick Special is beautiful! A true classic!
Now I’m thinking about the Midnight Special:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrj5KxdzoucU.S. jobless claims tally tops 5 million mark
Quote:WASHINGTON – New jobless claims rose more than expected last week and the number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits has topped 5.1 million, fresh evidence the recession is increasingly forcing employers to shed jobs.The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment benefits jumped to 667,000 from the previous week’s figure of 631,000. Analysts had expected a slight drop in claims.
The 667,000 new claims are the most since October 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 639,000, the highest in more than 26 years.
Separately, U.S. manufacturers saw orders for big-ticket goods plunge by a larger-than-expected 5.2 percent in January as global economic troubles cut demand from customers at home and abroad.
The latest report on U.S. factory activity, released by the Commerce Department, showed orders falling for a record sixth straight month. The previous record of four months came in 1992.
And new home sales tumbled 10.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000 last month, the worst showing on government records going back to 1963.
The median sales price fell to $201,100 in January, a record 9.9 percent drop from the previous month. The median price is the midpoint, where half sell for more and half for less. But even lower prices and low mortgage rates haven’t ended the housing market slump.
All told, it points to more dismal news for an economy stuck in a negative cycle, where consumers scale back purchases as jobs vanish, home prices drop and stock portfolios shrink. Those factors fuel more job cuts by profit-starved businesses.
Companies are “becoming extremely cautious and … shelving their capital spending plans and working with the minimal possible work force,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Normura Securities International.
Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at the IHS Global Insight consulting firm, said: “We have been looking for signs that the economy’s rate of decline might be slowing, but can’t find any.”
The stock markets shook off the bad news and rose on hopes that the Obama administration is setting aside up to $750 billion to aid the U.S. financial services industry. The Dow Jones industrial average added about 80 points and broader indices also rose in midday trading.
Meanwhile, the number of people receiving unemployment insurance for more than one week also increased more than expected to 5.1 million. That’s the fifth straight week the figure has set a new record-high on data going back to 1967, and compared with only about 2.8 million people a year ago.
As a proportion of the work force, the number of people continuing to receive benefits has reached its highest point since July 1983.
An additional 1.4 million people were receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program approved by Congress last year, as of Feb. 7, the latest data available. That brings the total number of jobless benefit recipients to roughly 6.5 million.
The increase in continuing claims is an indication that many newly laid off workers are having difficulty finding jobs.
Economists consider jobless claims a timely, if volatile, indicator of the health of the labor markets and broader economy. A year ago, initial claims stood at about 359,000.
The labor market has deteriorated rapidly in recent months. Employers cut a net total of nearly 600,000 jobs in January, the highest monthly tally since 1974, sending the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. Many economists expect the rate to reach 9 percent by the end of this year, even with the passage of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package.
More job losses were announced this week. The NFL said Wednesday that commissioner Roger Goodell has taken a 20 percent pay cut and the league dropped 169 jobs through buyouts, layoffs and other reductions. Spartanburg, S.C.-based textile maker Milliken & Co. said it would cut 650 jobs at facilities worldwide, while jeweler Zale Corp. said it will close 115 stores and eliminate 245 positions.
On Monday, troubled flash memory maker Spansion Inc. said it will lay off about 3,000 employees and computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc. announced it will slash as many as 2,000 workers by the end of August.
Among the states, New Jersey had the biggest increase in jobless claims for the week ending Feb. 14, a jump of 2,093 that it attributed to layoffs in the service, transportation and manufacturing industries. The next largest increases were in Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont and South Dakota.
California saw the largest drop in claims, a decline of 16,550, which it attributed to fewer layoffs in service industries. Drops of 4,000 or more also were reported in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York.
Green jobs are popping more and more in this economy. I see there are a bunch going to be created in Oregon (state not the Wisconsin City) now too.
Here’s a link to a map of the show location. Also, we have photos from this show over the past several years (it was called Klassarama and run by another group in 2004 & 2005):
2007
2005
2004As you can see its really a beautiful location!
GTO Man wrote:
Quote:I think the idea of a hybrid bus is great, and they do have some, but the main focus of this money is to get people back to work. If this country is going to get out of the hole it is in jobs have to be created. It may be too late already but at least we have to try. I don’t know if the buses are built in this country, if they are than some jobs will be kept or created. If that is the case it is kind of a win/win in that fuel will be saved and jobs kept or created. I think it is important that municipalities receiving the money try to create jobs in their own backyard.Do you know if building these extra buses would mean more routes or stop times? If so, that could help in allowing more people to take the bus and it would save them gas money in this economy where every expenditure counts more
I just came on to post this. I was shocked to hear this – IMO Cadillac would have been the divison to go. Their paradigm doesn’t make as much sense in an era of fuel efficient cars and high gas prices. The Cadillac Escalade certainly didn’t have great fuel economy.
Here’s a video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29307802#29307802And here’s Jalopnik’s Funeral for Pontaic:
http://jalopnik.com/tag/pontiac/?id=5155904
