Archive for February, 2010

Don’t you love the “he’s paid enough” mentality?

A judge on Thursday ordered a former Kmart CEO to pay more than $10 million for misleading investors before the retail chain filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002.

However, the judge denied an SEC request that would have prevented Charles Conaway from serving as an officer or director at another public company.

“I feel the lessons learned, the hardships to him and his family, the disgorgement and the penalty, the damage to his reputation will be enough to deter any future securities violations by Mr. Conaway,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Pepe said.

His reputation will be enough to deter any further violations. Let’s remember than 10 to 15 years from now. If it’s not him, it will be someone he knows, wanna bet?

The government now says that China did not lose its place in December as the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt.

The Treasury Department said that under annual benchmark revisions released Friday, China’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities stood at $894.8 billion at the end of December, keeping it in first place ahead of Japan.

On Feb. 16, the government reported data that showed China had been surpassed by Japan. However, the government said in the new report that those figures did not account for purchases by Chinese investors in such places as Britain.

If you’re going to issue a report, shouldn’t you check all your facts before issuing the report? Why is it that the government is always “revising numbers”?

Wal-Mart sells millions of DVD’s every year, it’s only natural that they demand a piece of the pie from online rentals. It was just a matter of time.

Wal-Mart Stores is taking another swing at the online movie business with the acquisition of Vudu.
The retail giant announced the deal on Monday following widespread speculation that an acquisition would be coming soon. Financial terms were not disclosed.

I’m not sure how it is everywhere else, but I have never had a problem with AT&T since I got my iPhone. In fact, I have more coverage now than I ever did with Verizon or T-Mobile.

Finally there appears to be an explanation for all the bitterly cold weather we’ve been having lately: Hell has frozen over.

The cause: AT&T appears to have followed through on promises to upgrade its cellular network making it, according to tests published by PC World, by far the fastest 3G wireless network in America.

If the numbers are to be believed (and they include over 50,000 speed tests in 13 cities in the U.S. using both phones and 3G-connected laptops), AT&T’s reversal of fortune is nothing short of astonishing. The data are actually hard to fathom. The average AT&T download speed is now 1410kbps. Verizon is next at 877kbps, followed by T-Mobile at 868kbps and Sprint at 795kbps. That puts AT&T at nearly twice the throughput of its competition, across the board.

AT&T customer service has been stellar too, contrary to many other reports on the web. Thanks AT&T, I appreciate it.

Have you ever wondered about your internet banking? Is It safe?

Ask your bank how safe it is to do business online and it may tell you it’s more secure than traditional banking. But cyber security experts would disagree.

“That’s a lie,” says Joseph Menn, who reports on cyber security for the Financial Times.

“The banks are stuck because they’ve been telling people it’s safe, and the fraud they’re on the hook for has gone up four-fold in six months,” Menn says.

“The banks have been kidding people about all this because they save money when people bank online.”

Should you be worried? If you’re bank is saving money, everything is okay, right? Don’t you save money when you don’t drive your car? Internet banking is better for the environment too, isn’t it? That makes it a win-win, doesn’t it?

After nearly 50 years of hammering competitors with discounts, Wal-Mart is getting a taste of its own medicine.

The world’s largest retailer has seen sales at its U.S. Walmart stores fall for the first time, as price-cutting competitors lure away bargain-hunters. Department stores and dollar stores are muscling in on the company’s discount turf.

And executives do not expect much improvement in the current quarter, forecasting sales at stores open at least a year will range from down 1 percent to up 1 percent.

Yet, their profit still rose 22 percent. They’re complaining their profits are down, but they actually went up. Cry me a frickin’ river.

General Motors Co. CEO Ed Whitacre will receive a salary of $1.7 million this year, plus stock awards that will bring his total pay package to $9 million at a later date, the automaker said Friday.

In a surprise announcement, GM also said former CEO Fritz Henderson has been rehired as a consultant. Henderson, who was forced out of the job in December, will work 20 hours a month and will be paid $59,090 a month, the company said.

As a citizen of the United States of America, which is the majority shareholder in Government Motors, I would like to know why Mr. Whitacre will be receiving $9 million of my tax dollars.

The five states where the housing crisis has taken the biggest toll will receive part of a $1.5 billion federal aid package intended to slow the tide of home foreclosures, the Obama administration announced Friday.

The money will be distributed to housing agencies in California, Nevada, Florida, Michigan, and Arizona – states where home prices have dropped more than 20 percent since the peak of the market, in a bid to help keep struggling homeowners in their houses.

Meanwhile, foreclosures will rise in five different states prompting further action by the Obama administration.

This should be the first of many.

Promising “this is only the beginning,” President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees Tuesday for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the United States in nearly three decades.

Obama cast his move as both economically essential and politically attractive as he sought to put more charge into his broad energy agenda. Obama called for comprehensive energy legislation that assigns a cost to the carbon pollution of fossil fuels, giving utility companies more incentive to turn to cleaner nuclear fuel.

It’s amazing how much a President’s tune changes when control begins to shift in Congress.

Greece has only days to explain its use of complex financial deals that it used to mask debt and just a month to prove that its drastic budget cuts go far enough to reassure markets and EU governments, who are reluctant to bail Athens out if it can’t pay its bills.

Greece’s troubles has plunged the 16 nations that use the euro into a crisis by breaking rules on debt and deficit that underpin Europe’s currency union amid worries that its problems could be even bigger because its public finance figures cannot be trusted.

More proof that robbing Peter to pay Paul never works. Especially when Peter is broke to begin with.