The July 2010 NABE Industry Survey: What Recovery?
Economists and the unemployed have discovered that the recovery is not much of a recovery. GDP expansion may have died in June and there are very few signs that it is improving this month.…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
The TARP Program To Increase American Unemployment
The average car dealership probably employs 20 or 30 people. That does not include the truckers who deliver the cars, the people who provide basic services, or the employees in the town where the…
Media Digest 7/18/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: Moody’s downgraded Ireland’s debt. Reuters: Engineers detected seepage around the capped BP well. Reuters: The National Association for Business Economics says companies will begin to hire again but the service sector will be…
Motorola Droid X Sold Out
Consumers who want to buy a new Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid X from Verizon Wireless may want to buy an Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 4 instead, even if it comes with a rubber…
Airlines Set To Fly To Near Record High Revenues For Second Quarter
Starting with Monday’s 2nd quarter earnings release by Delta (NYSE: DAL) and ending on July 29thwith Southwest (NYSE: LUV),AirlineFinancials.com estimates the nine largest US airlines will report an accumulated $1.77 billion in net profitson…
Six Banks Fail As Total Nears 100
Six more American banks failed. The FDIC and state bank authorities took over each one and sold the assets off to other firms. The tally of banks that failed this year is now 96.…
Jobs iPhone Fix Speech Pushes Apple Higher On Offer Of Rubber Phone As Market Drops 2.5%
Steve Jobs is an excellent public speaker. He proved that again when he defended the issue of reception problems with the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 4. Apple’s stock is up about .5% to $252.05…
Consumer Confidence Collapses As “Recession” Returns
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index plummeted to 66.5 from 76.0 in June. That was below market expectations for 74.5, according to the news service. The number is at its lowest point…
Honda Going Green with Hybrid-only Civic
There hasn’t been an official announcement yet, but it seems that Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC) will stop building its gasoline-powered Civic for the domestic Japanese market. The company will also stop making its…
Foreign Purchase Of US Assets Wither
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released Treasury International Capital (TIC) data for May 2010. From the data: Net foreign purchases of long-term securities were $35.4 billion. * Net foreign purchases of long-term U.S.…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (7/16/2010)
Updated throughout the day. Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) will not recall its iPhone 4 (various) Two private equity groups will make final bids in a $1.6 billion battle for control of Healthscope (Reuters) Douglas…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Stock Market Report 7.16.2010 The Wisdom Of Crowds
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million…
GE Improves: Energy Ops Drag, NBCU Bright Spot
GE announced today second-quarter 2010 earnings from continuing operations (attributable to GE) of $3.3 billion, with EPS of $0.30 per share up 15% from the second quarter of 2009. Revenues were $37.4 billion for…
24/7 Wall St. CEOs Who Need to be Fired: Nine for 2010
Public companies dismiss CEOs all the time. The firings can be due to incompetence, malfeasance, or tensions with boards of directors or founders. 24/7 Wall St. has chosen nine sitting CEOs who should be let…
As Apple Fixes One iPhone Problem, Another Looms
Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) will have its big press conference today. Ahead of the event the company is in the midst of offering software and other solutions to weak signal and false signal readings…
Half Of Social Network Users Fear Privacy Issues As They Should
Many users of social media networks are worried that the companies that own the networks “spy” on them. Most of these privacy issues have to do with the websites giving marketers information about the…
As Goldman Settles, Main Street Loses
It is too easy to say that the average American expects law-breakers to go to prison or at least receive extreme punishment. Neither of those things happened in the SEC settlement with Goldman Sachs…
Video Game Sales Remain Depressed, Wii Loses Ground
Video game sales were down again in June. The introduction of new games and cut in console prices by Microsoft Corporation (NYSE: MSFT), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Nintendo (OTC:NTDOY) have been trumped by faltering…
Media Digest 7/16/2010
MarketWatch: AgBank rose after its debut on the Hong Kong market. Reuters: Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) settled with the SEC for $550 million. Reuters: BP plc (NYSE: BP) capped the flow of oil…
Goldman Sachs Settles With SEC For Mere $550 Million, Shares Rise
The SEC once again proved that it cannot complete a large case against a major company. In a settlement that looks like those that it made with Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) over disclosures…