2/3rds of US Corporations Pay Zero Federal Taxes: US Uncut Movement Builds to Make Them Pay Up - The Nation - Alison Kilkenny - March 31, 2011 - “I’m tired of people calling for shared sacrifice and it’s all coming from the workers and nothing’s coming from the top,” says protester Dave Sonenberg. “I’m sick of companies like Bank of America not paying their taxes.”....
Real estate crash catches up to cities as property taxes slide - Bloomberg - By William Selway and Henry Goldman - March 29, 2011 - Local officials are now facing the consequences. Property- tax revenue dropped in the last three months of 2010 at the fastest pace since home prices slipped from their peak more than four years ago, the Census Bureau said yesterday. The decline may continue as values fall further, adding strains to cash- strapped localities that already fired workers, halted projects and cut spending because of the recession that began in 2007.
Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Secret Lifeline Most at Crisis Peak - Bloomberg - April 1, 2011 - “What in the world are we doing thinking we can pass out tens of billions of dollars to banks that are overseas?” said Paul, who has advocated abolishing the Fed. “We have problems here at home with people not being able to pay their mortgages, and they’re losing their homes.” ...
Fed's Rules Let Brokers Turn Junk Into Cash at Height of Financial Crisis - Bloomberg - By Matthew Leising - Mar 31, 2011 - At the height of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve allowed the world’s largest banks to turn more than $118 billion in junk bonds, defaulted debt, securities of unknown ratings and stocks into cash.... Collateral of those asset types made up 72 percent of the total $164.3 billion in market-rate securities pledged to the Fed on Sept. 29, 2008, two weeks after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to documents released yesterday. The collateral backed $155.7 billion in loans on the largest day of borrowing from the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, which was created in March 2008 to provide loans to brokers as Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed....
Gross Echoes Buffett Saying Treasuries Have ‘Little Value’ on Debt, Dollar - Bloomberg - By Wes Goodman - Mar 30, 2011 - By Wes Goodman - Mar 30, 2011 - The U.S. has unrecorded debt of $75 trillion, or close to 500 percent of gross domestic product, counting what it owes on its bonds plus obligations for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook. The U.S. will experience inflation, currency devaluation and low-to- negative interest rates after accounting for consumer-price gains if it doesn’t reform its entitlement programs, he said... Pimco “has been selling Treasuries because they have little value within the context of a $75 trillion total debt burden,” ... President Barack Obama’s government has increased the U.S. publicly traded debt to a record $9.05 trillion, leading Gross to compare the nation to Greece, which had its credit ratings cut two steps by Standard & Poor’s on March 29... “We are out-Greeking the Greeks,” he wrote.
Underemployment Rises to 20.3% in March - Gallup - April 1, 2011 - Jenny Marlar - Despite the Obama administration's March 16 announcement that unemployment would remain high or increase in coming months, the underemployed in March became neither more nor less hopeful about finding work soon. Six in 10 underemployed Americans are not hopeful they will find work or move from part-time to full-time work in the next four weeks. That translates to 12% of the workforce that is both underemployed and not hopeful they will find their desired amount of work. The lack of change suggests that underemployed Americans anticipated long-term difficulties in finding work well before the administration's formal announcement was made...
Keiser Report: Food Stamp Army
