Archive for March, 2010

Lowe’s Cos. CEO Robert A. Niblock received compensation valued at $11.7 million in 2009 from the nation’s No. 2 home-improvement retailer, up 3 percent from 2008.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, Lowe’s reported that Niblock, 47, who is also chairman, received a salary of $1.1 million, the same as in 2008, and a performance-based bonus of $2.8 million, up from $1.5 million in 2008.

He received other compensation worth $204,515, including $30,297 for personal use of the company’s corporate aircraft and a $6,816 contribution to Niblock’s 401(k) plan.

The bulk of his award came as stock options and grants valued at $7.5 million the date they were granted.

I can hear the socialist in the White House screaming already. That’s just not fair.

Does anyone really believe that Kroger has more to offer than Wal-Mart? Seriously?

Kroger Co.’s CEO said Tuesday the grocer has more weapons than price to deploy in the fight for recession-pinched shoppers.

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has signaled it plans to cut more prices as it and other stores try to rebound from slow or falling grocery sales. In their search for lower prices, some shoppers have shifted to warehouse clubs and dollar stores, and Wal-Mart wants to woo them — along with shoppers from standard supermarkets.

Better assortment? Puh-leaze

I get these letters all the time telling me I can get a loan modification. I did. Through the bank that holds my mortgage. Not some fly by night place that wanted money up-front.

Federal prosecutors announced the indictment of a Southern California man on money laundering and conspiracy charges for a scheme to defraud delinquent homeowners hoping to modify their mortgages.

Glenn Steven Rosofsky is accused of running a mortgage fraud scheme in San Marcos, California, that operated under the names Nations Housing Modification Center and Federal Housing Modification Department, according to a statement released Tuesday by U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt in San Diego.

The government said Rosofsky and others would make false statements to induce customers to pay $2,500 to $3,000 to buy loan modification services. He also asked others to rent a post office box and office space in Washington, D.C. to create the impression that his service operated on Capitol Hill, the government said.

Just think of all the payments they could have made with those “service” fees.

Investors in February pulled an estimated $3.7 billion from U.S. stock-focused mutual funds, dashing hopes of a rebound in demand for equities, while showering $19.7 billion on taxable bond funds, according to a report from Morningstar.

After investors pulled almost $26 billion from U.S. stock funds last year, analysts thought the trend might have turned around in January, when investors added a net $2.7 billion. But the one-month inflow ended in February, fund analysts at Morningstar wrote in their latest monthly report.

Lately it’s been more take, on the part of investors. Seems the government is set in a give mode. Give, give, give, then pay for it with take, take, take.

Honda announced the recall of an estimated 412,000 vehicles in the United States because of problems with “soft” brakes, in the latest blow to the embattled Japanese auto industry.

Honda said the problem can result from air accumulating in a “vehicle stability assist modulator,” which causes the pedal to get closer to the floor than normal before the vehicle stops.

They just can’t stop, can they?

Because making cigarette taxes so prohibitively high worked to make people quit smoking, it’s time to take on the sodas and pizzas!!

U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults’ calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.

The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday, suggested taxing could be used as a weapon in the fight against obesity, which costs the United States an estimated $147 billion a year in health costs.

For the record, I have had pizza three times since November, and I have lost 16 pounds. That’s unfair taxation without representation I say.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust… But can they turn concrete into tomatoes? Only time will tell.

Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Because the economy is doing so well…

The Federal Reserve is beginning a program to drain some of the unprecedented liquidity it added to markets during the credit crisis.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday it will begin conducting reverse repurchase agreements. That’s when the Fed sells securities from its portfolio with an agreement to buy them back later.

Funny, it’s that initial act of adding liquidity into the credit markets that created the mess we are in now. Thanks guys!

Anyone who thought we’d see a full return of our money, let alone make money on any of the bailout deals, was an idiot.

The Treasury Department sank billions into auto finance giant GMAC Inc. without an exit strategy or proof the company was viable — a decision that could cost taxpayers $6.3 billion, a new watchdog report says.

The government said the $17.2 billion bailout was a necessary step to save troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler. GMAC provides critical financing to auto dealers, who borrow to finance their fleets until the cars can be sold to consumers.

ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI – News) didn’t pay $20.8 million for debt-ridden Daniel Webster College in June just to acquire its red-brick campus, 1,200 students, or computer science and aviation training programs.

To ITT, the third-biggest higher-education company in the U.S., the Nashua (N.H.) college’s “most attractive” feature was its regional accreditation, says Michael Goldstein, an attorney at Dow Lohnes, a Washington firm that has long represented the Carmel (Ind.) company. Regional accreditation, the same gold standard of academic quality enjoyed by Harvard, is a way to increase enrollment and tap into the more than $100 billion the federal government pays out annually in financial aid.

It may be the same regional accreditation, but saying you went to ITT rather than Harvard sure doesn’t raise any eyebrows.