Archive for April, 2008

If someone attacked you and you felt your life was threatened, how much would you sue them for?

How does $137,000 sound? Doesn’t that sound kind of low for a “life threatening experience”?

What if the person who attacked you only offered you $20,000? Would you take it?

After all, the attack left you with a split lip, some cuts on your face, and a heaping plate of embarassment.

What if your life was never in danger and you basically got your ass kicked by a 62 year old man?

Yeah, maybe you should have taken that settlement, huh?

A photographer who said he worried he would be killed when Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband punched him in the face on a Beverly Hills street was awarded $4,510 in damages Friday.

…

In his complaint, Dirk Smeten claimed Von Anhalt, 62, angrily approached and began punching him while Smeten tried to photograph him in May 2005. The blows caused Smeten to fall to the sidewalk, according to the complaint.

…

“I have this camera over my shoulder trying to photograph my wife. No respect whatsoever,” Von Anhalt said. “I pushed him away. He came back. I pushed him away again. He came back again.”

Von Anhalt said he wanted to settle the case, and had offered Smeten $20,000.

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Things aren’t looking too good for Citigroup this week.

Citigroup Inc. lost $5.1 billion during the first quarter and will eliminate about 9,000 more jobs, as poor bets on mortgages and leveraged loans lopped billions of dollars from its investment portfolio.

Write-downs related to mortgages and turmoil in the credit markets reached more than $12 billion, and costs stemming from consumers’ credit problems surpassed $3 billion, the bank said Friday. And in a conference call with analysts, Citigroup chief financial officer Gary Crittenden said the bank, seeking to cut costs, is eliminating about 9,000 additional jobs.

Citigroup has announced 13,200 job cuts since the credit crisis began slamming the banking industry last summer. The bank announced 4,200 cuts in January, and more work-force reductions are likely.

If they’ve had to cut that many jobs and lost that much money already, what’s going to happen when this whole sub-prime thing finally hits rock bottom? I don’t think I want to know.

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Does this kind of stuff happen anywhere else but in Georgia?

A wandering pig tied up traffic on Interstate 75 in Cobb County Thursday morning as commuters slowed down to get a look. Marietta Police spokesman Mark Bishop said the pig apparently came off a small truck that was traveling southbound about 9:30 a.m.

Traffic was temporarily halted to rescue the pig, which sustained minor injuries. Bishop said the pig was tied up to keep it from receiving more injuries until animal control officers arrived to get it. He said no accidents were caused by the pig.

Seriously, last week there was a zebra on the road, this week a pig. What’s coming next week? I can hardly wait to see.

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I think this news was expected given all the other financial reports we’ve heard over the past week.

Capital One Financial Corp, (COF.N) a credit card and banking company, said on Thursday that first quarter earnings fell, as it set aside three times as much money for credit losses as the same quarter last year.

The fourth-largest issuer of Visa and MasterCards in the United States said it sees evidence of the economy weakening and expects further deterioration

“This cyclical downturn may be deeper and longer than was anticipated in prior results,” Capital One Chief Financial Officer Gary Perlin said on a conference call.

Does this mean I will no longer receive 3 credit card offers a week from them now? I sure hope so.

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Can you believe this guys luck?

A tow truck driver unknowingly hauled away a car with a 7-year-old asleep inside before returning the vehicle minutes later and speeding away, police said.

The panicked parents of the missing boy watched the driver hurriedly unhook their car and take off as they met with authorities late Monday, according to a Dallas police report. A possible kidnapping investigation at the apartment complex had already begun.

Fidel Retana Jr., 23, was pulled over a short time later and arrested on child endangerment charges. But police said Tuesday they expect to drop the charges.

Child endangerment? Hell, he was the only responsible adult around. If anyone should be charged with child endangerment, it’s the mother who left the child unattended in the car.

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You know there is a problem in management that outweighs the whole subprime mortgage fiasco when you go from an $0.86 per share profit to a $1.40 per share loss in one year.

Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N), the largest U.S. savings and loan, posted a $1.14 billion first-quarter loss on Tuesday, hurt by mounting credit losses as more mortgage borrowers fall behind on payments.

The Seattle-based thrift also unexpectedly announced the resignation of Mary Pugh, a director who chaired its finance committee. Several shareholder advisory services had called on shareholders to withhold votes from one or more directors, including Pugh and James Stever. The latter leads the human resources committee, which sets executive compensation.

WaMu, as the thrift is known, said the quarterly loss equaled $1.40 per share, and compared with a year-earlier profit of $784 million, or 86 cents.

I am surprised more board members didn’t get squeezed out before this. Of course, it’s all good because WaMu just got that nice infusion of cash, remember? Adding $7 billion from investors should help them steady the ship, shouldn’t it?

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One week ago, I asked where all the capital had gone when WaMu got a $5 billion infusion of capital. I wondered, if all the houses are still there, why are they needing “more capital”? I just didn’t get it.

Wachovia Corp (WB.N) may get a capital infusion of roughly $6 billion to $7 billion from outside investors, The Wall Street Journal said on Sunday.

The terms of the deal were being finalized on Sunday night, but Wachovia could get funding from investors who would get discounted shares in the company, the newspaper said in its electronic edition.

The investors would get shares priced at roughly $23 to $24 each, the newspaper said. That marks a discount compared with Wachovia’s closing stock price of $27.87 on the New York Stock Exchange.

I still don’t get it. I don’t understand where all the capital went. Was it the devaluation of properties tied up in the subprime lending fiasco, or is there something else here we should be worried about? Was there that much money tied up in the housing market that every financial institution in the United States will need an infusion of cash to stay operational? If so, were hosed already.

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I’m not sure, if I was allergic to bee stings, that I would be sleeping in a house with 60,000 bees. What about you?

A Greenville County woman is working with a beekeeper to rid her home of 60,000 bees living in the walls of her house for a month.

WYFF-TV reported that Jane Walcott is allergic to bees and has been sleeping with anti-allergy medication near her bed to give herself an emergency shot if stung.

Lucky for me the only thing I seem to be allergic to is sleep itself.

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I was going to post about the lady who backed into a McDonalds restaurant and interrupted a bingo game, but this one was too good to pass up.

She had no desire to be just another smiling face in Italian politics. So when porn star Milly D’Abbraccio designed her campaign posters, it was obvious she was going to show off her bottom.

Targeting her male fan base, the veteran of Italy’s adult entertainment industry has plastered images of her derriere all around the Eternal City in a bid to win a seat in Rome’s city hall.

If elected, D’Abbraccio wants to create a red light area with strip clubs, erotic discos and sex shops called “Love City” just kilometres away from the Vatican.

Why is it that the pornstars/strippers/prostitutes of the world always run on a pornstar/stripper/prostitute type platform? Politicians don’t normally do that. If they did, with some of our recent Presidents, Social Security would be fully funded and polygamy would be legal in all 50 states.

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The mere fact they are considering bankruptcy as an option does not bode well for those who have invested in the company or who the company owes money.

Home goods retailer Linens ‘n Things is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection, a person familiar with the situation said on Friday.

The chain, owned by buyout firm Apollo Global Management, is negotiating with creditors, which include General Electric Co (GE.N), the source said.

While bankruptcy is “on the table,” it is one of many options being considered, the source said. “It is not the top option, nor is it the option that the company is currently pursuing at this very second.”

Most people get a chill up their spine when they hear the word bankruptcy, but it’s different for companies. Sure, the current stock ends up worthless and a lot of innocent smaller creditors get screwed over, but the company as a whole, normally survives and moves on.

This is not very good news, especially with GE’s announcement today that their profits dropped.

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