See: A Di$mal Bu$ine$$ Section From the Bo$ton Globe
"Disappointing earnings from Bank of America and Citigroup tugged markets to their fifth straight loss. At the same time, oil prices continued their slide. Across the Atlantic, Switzerland’s central bank rocked currency markets when it abandoned efforts to keep the Swiss franc artificially low against the euro. The Swiss currency soared but stocks took a pounding. Back home Radio Shack fell 36 percent following a Wall Street Journal report that the struggling electronics retailer could file for bankruptcy as early as February. Target rose on its plan to shut all of its stores in Canada, saying it wasn’t hopeful of turning a profit."
Yeah, the pi$$-poor Chri$tmas season is all a big joke!
"Target Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said Thursday that the company was unable to find a realistic scenario in which the 133-store Target Canada would become profitable before at least 2021. It is Cornell’s first major move since becoming CEO in August. Target entered Canada in 2013. While operations there improved before the holiday season due to changes in pricing and product assortment, Target still wasn’t satisfied with its performance."
And if office supplies are not selling this economy is not recovering.
Mortgage rates fall to 20-month low
So what? No one can afford a home or get a loan.
Home remodeling spending to drop slightly in first half of 2015
But you know....
"The utility provider National Grid has begun billing 15,000 customers in Worcester based on how much power costs on an hour-to-hour basis. The pilot program is meant to test the “smart grid” the power company has installed across Worcester over the past two years. By informing consumers and improving its infrastructure, the company said it hopes to cut bills and reduce the impact of blackouts. Under the Smart Rewards plan, Edward White, National Grid’s vice president of customer strategy and environmental, said a household that uses 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month could expect to shave $16 off its bill. On a yearly basis, that amounts to $192. That figure assumes customers will change their consumption patterns to reduce their electricity use at peak times, White said, by doing things like running the dishwasher after 8 p.m., or doing the laundry before bed."
Sounds great, except the profiteering price gougers are going to control your energy flow and tell you when to do the wash.
And they called it FREEDOM!
Here is a real kick in the head:
"A 16-year-old sneaker-loving teen is using the footwear to get a different kind of kick — he’s opened a pawnshop that uses high-end athletic shoes as collateral. Chase Reed and his father, Troy Reed, opened Sneaker Pawn on Lenox Avenue in Harlem looking to capitalize on America’s multibillion-dollar athletic footwear market and the high prices sneakers can get being re-sold.
All put together for pennies an hour by child labor in Asia.
Basketball sneakers can sell and re-sell for hundreds of dollars, depending on the shoe model, how limited the production run was, and how easy it is to find a pair in good condition. Sneaker Pawn carries shoes with price tags of more than $1,000. People looking to just unload their sneakers — specifically basketball shoes — can offer them to the Reeds to be bought outright, or on a consignment agreement which nets the Reeds 20 percent of the final sale price. Those looking to pawn their sneakers have two months to redeem them for the amount of money the Reeds forwarded them plus a storage fee. Shoes that are being pawned are held in storage and not displayed, until the owner either gets them back or gives them up."
Pawnshops for sneakers has to be a great thing for the economy! They must already have all your gold and other valuables!
"Bank of America reported an 11 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, caused partly by the slowdown in trading revenue that has hit Wall Street. The bank earned $3.05 billion, or 25 cents a share, for the three-month period ending in December, compared with a profit of $3.44 billion, or 29 cents a share, a year earlier."
The Globe missed all those talking points. Hmmm.
Maybe they have just hit a slump, huh?
"JPMorgan Chase’s fourth-quarter earnings fell 7 percent because of legal bills and a drop in trading revenue. JPMorgan, the biggest US bank by assets, earned $4.93 billion, or $1.19 a share, in the quarter, versus $5.28 billion, or $1.30 a share, a year earlier. A $990 million after-tax charge for legal expenses was more than expected. The bank’s results have been hurt by various legal costs over several quarters as it settles lawsuits with state and federal regulators over its role in the financial crisis. Chief executive Jamie Dimon said investors should expect more legal expenses this year. ‘‘Banks are under assault,’’ he said, noting that JPMorgan deals with ‘‘five to six regulators’’ on every aspect of its legal issues."
Yeah, poor JPMorgan and those legal bills defending fraud. They only made $5 billion this quarter. I wish I was under such a$$ault.
Related: UBS unit paying $14.4m to settle SEC charges
For failing to give investors full information about its so-called ‘‘dark pool’’ trading system.
Speaking of dark pools:
"A federal judge determined Thursday that more oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico following a rig explosion in 2010 than BP estimated, a decision that could potentially cost the London-based oil giant more than $13 billion. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that 3.19 million barrels were discharged into the Gulf after a rig explosion at BP's Macondo well. The number is more than the 2.4 million barrel figure BP had argued for and less than the government's estimate of about 4.2 million. The government figure could have meant $18 billion in maximum penalties under the Clean Water Act. Penalties are to be determined in a trial set to open Tuesday."
What? Being told this AFTER FOUR YEARS?!!!!
"While oil plunges, other prices rise" by Jay Fitzgerald, Globe Correspondent January 16, 2015
The fuel surcharge on Aquitaine’s bill is just one small example of how tumbling energy costs don’t necessarily translate into falling prices for other goods and services. Even as crude oil prices plummet to their lowest levels in six years, reducing transportation and other energy costs for businesses, many consumer prices are still rising.
What a wonderful looting scheme that has been constructed, huh?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Consumer prices post biggest drop in six years
$ee what I'm talking about? Think I missed it?
The Amerikan economic $y$tem in its full glory. May it soon fall.
Industries, such as hotels and airlines, that slapped customers with surcharges and higher prices when oil skyrocketed several years ago have been slow to pass energy savings on to consumers.
Have they passed on any because you said prices keep rising?
Why? Reasons vary among different companies, but ultimately it comes down to supply and demand.
What bull$hit.
In other words, businesses aren’t sharing energy windfalls because they don’t have to.
In a free economy full of entrepreneur$hip?
Take hotels, for example.....
“It’s classic supply and demand,” I'm told.
***************
The airline industry isn’t hiding that it’s replenishing cash after more than a decade of rising fuel prices and tumultuous events that wreaked havoc on the travel industry, from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to the recent Great Recession.
Look, I'm sorry you money-junkie jerks blew the $15 billion bailout and are going along with all these propaganda lies and further tyranny that are hurting your business, but f*** off.
Airlines for America, the industry trade group, said carriers have other operational and capital costs, from funding union contracts to buying aircraft, that contribute to air fares.
“When the price of coffee beans falls, no one asks Starbucks why his or her latte does not cost less,” the trade group said in a statement. “You want Starbucks to expand its stores and products, give back to its baristas, and reward investors. Airlines are no different.”
Robbing you is fine! That is the AmeriKan way!
In Massachusetts, Steamship Authority officials say fuel savings are more than offset by rising costs of wages, employee health insurance, pension contributions, and maintenance. “We have all these expenses we have to meet,” said Wayne Lamson, general manager of the Steamship Authority, which operates ferries between Cape Cod and Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
BOO-HOO-HOO!
You guys and your f***ing endle$$ excu$es.
So what six-figure salary is he pulling down serving elite $hits?
Consumers aren’t catching a break on their electricity bills, either. Prices for electric power in much of Massachusetts are up more than 30 percent this winter, largely because the pipeline system that supplies generating plants with natural gas doesn’t have the capacity to bring in enough fuel at affordable prices....
Uh-huh.
That during the same time we are having an unbelievably cold winter (despite the fart mist; for the record, it is snowing hard here as I post this)!
--more--"
The Globe didn't consider this story very important, for it was placed in the left-bottom corner of page C3:
"Swiss move on currency stuns firms, markets" by David Jolly and Neil Irwin, New York Times January 16, 2015
PARIS — The Swiss central bank stunned global markets Thursday by abandoning a crucial part of its three-year effort to hold down the value of its national currency against the ever-weakening euro.
The country had been trying to cap the value of its currency, the franc, as nervous investors fled the market tumult and sought the relative safety of Switzerland. But in the face of a steep decline in the euro, the plan proved to be too risky and too costly to continue.
In other words, the Swiss just exited the EU.
On Thursday, the central bank surrendered to the market dynamics, saying in a statement that it was giving up the minimum exchange rate.
The bank simultaneously cut interest rates, hoping to offset some of the damage in foreign exchange markets. It reduced the rate that it would charge lenders for certain deposits they hold at the central bank.
The abrupt moves sent the value of the Swiss franc soaring and the country’s stocks plummeting. Exporters, in particular, got slammed over fears that the rising currency would weigh on profit.
“Words fail me!” Nick Hayek, chief executive of watchmaker Swatch Group, said in a statement distributed to news media, adding that Thursday’s action “is a tsunami; for the export industry and for tourism, and, finally, for the entire country.”
The shocking move underscores the turbulent state of the global economy.
Funny, because just a few weeks ago I was told all was well.
Around the world, smaller economies are grappling with how to navigate the aggressive monetary activism of major central banks, including the Federal Reserve in the United States and the European Central Bank.
Meaning how do we deal with the destabilizing amount of currency being printed to prop up stock markets and fatten wealthy elite pockets?
The European Central Bank looks to be on the verge of a new effort to try to pump money into the region’s troubled economy, which is creating downward pressure on the euro. The pressure is particularly pronounced against the dollar, the benchmark of global commerce, which is rising in part because of a strong US economy and plans by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
See: The Fed Goes Global
“Recently, divergences between the monetary policies of the major currency areas have increased significantly — a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced,” the Swiss central bank said in the announcement.
--more--"
Related: Swiss National Bank Tells the World – ''We’re Gettin’ Off This Train!''
Also see: While World Attention Is Diverted (On Purpose) Elsewhere: Russia Just Pulled Itself Out Of The Petro-Dollar!
Related: Beginning Today With Belgian Bullshit
I'm going to end this post with it, too, because it's pretty damn obviou$ for whom this new$paper is written of, by, and for. You don't need glasses to see it.
Time for lunch:
"It is one of the great views in Boston dining, and one that most people will never see. The Harborview dining room at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston serves lunch on the 31st floor of one of Boston’s tallest and most distinctive buildings, but no one just walks in off the street and hops an elevator to dine there. First, armed security guards and metal detectors are a barrier between the public and the orchids growing in the elevator lobby at the Fed entrance. Second, the Federal Reserve has limited the dining room to its employees, other building tenants, and their invited guests. The Fed has long been known for its Kremlin-esque culture. But if you can get into the dining room, it’s possible to rub elbows with some of the most secretive folks in town, from Federal Reserve officials to Harvard Management Co. executives, who oversee the world’s largest college endowment.
The real rulers who remain anonymous.
One Fed official recently referred to the dining room as a “quasi-public” space, making it possibly the first quasi-public dining establishment in Boston. But the bank has taken steps in the wake of the Great Recession to project itself as a more open and transparent institution. Although central bankers helped engineer a bailout that may have prevented the collapse of the financial system, many ordinary Americans have come to view the Fed as a pawn of rich Wall Street interests.
Yeah, they helped engineer a bailout of something they themselves created and profited from while lying about it. What a bunch of heroes, huh?
What do us dumb Amurkns know, huh?
Yet a recent lunch with a key official, Boston Fed executive vice president Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, was far from pampered. Fuhrer ate a Caesar salad and drank tap water, at times oblivious to the view as he discussed interest rates."
The Fed banking Fuhrer, huh? $ieg Heil!
Yes, the banks love you, readers. That's what their mouthpiece, apologist, and defender would have you believe!
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
I may me missing something, but I doubt it.
