Sun
6/6/2010
9:51 PM
Reported By Mike Zaman
On April 20 2010 BP's Deep Sea Horizon exploded dumping millions of barrels of oil into the gulf coast. It took some 46 days to finally cap the well and prevent even a quarter of the escaping oil from entering the gulf. The cap has been capturing some 10,000 barrels of oil a day since.
Now BP executives believe this is only a portion of the oil still gushing from the ocean floor some 5,000 feet below the surface. We now are led to believe that more than 460,000 barrels of oil have contaminated the Gulf region and the shorelines of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, that's in excess of 19,320,000 gallons and it could be and most likely is twice that amount.
Meanwhile this is the worst environmental catastrophe to ever hit the US. At Barataria Bay on the Louisiana coast, pelicans were so...
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6/6/2010
12:15 PM
Reported BY Mike Zaman
Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, may soon be treatable, but to what extent may depend on the severity of the disease. Melanoma is an accelerating disease that has become remarkably prominent in skin cancer circles.
An experimental drug, ipilimumab (ip-ee-LIM-uh-mab), significantly improved survival rates of people in advanced stages of this disease, on average by 10 months. The drug works by helping the immune system fight tumors.
The drug's maker, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. may have FDA approval as early as the end of 2010, but the drug is expected to be very high priced, leaving the question, what price is a life worth?
Before it is released to the public by FDA approval people with the disease may have access to it through special programs directly from Bristol-Myers.
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6/5/2010
5:19 PM
Reported By Mike Zaman
What is loss sharing?
Loss sharing is a feature that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) first introduced into selected purchase and assumption (P&A) transactions in 1991. Under loss sharing, the FDIC agrees to absorb a portion of the loss on a specified pool of assets in order to maximize asset recoveries and minimize FDIC losses. Loss sharing reduces the immediate cash needs of the FDIC, is operationally simpler and more seamless to failed bank customers and moves assets quickly into the private sector.
Does loss sharing put the taxpayer on the hook for additional losses down the road?
When the FDIC calculates the estimated cost of a failure, it takes into account all expected losses on the assets covered in loss share agreements. These current market assumptions are bui...
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6/5/2010
3:01 PM
Reported By Mike Zaman
As bank failures continue to take their toll on the FDIC fund, the government is concerned that the payout as banks continue to be seized will top $100bn over the next four years, but this may be overly optimistic, with 775 banks under scrutiny by the FDIC the likelihood is that the fund will be dry much before that.
The FDIC Seized number 79 through 81 on Friday beginning with a Nebraska bank, TierOne Bank, based in Lincoln, Neb., with about $2.8 billion in assets. TierOne has struggled since early last year to try to remain solvent.
Great Western Bank, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., agreed to acquire the assets and deposits of TierOne. In addition, the FDIC and Great Western agreed to share losses on $1.9 billion of TierOne Bank's loans and other assets.
Great Western Bank has a great pote...
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5/23/2010
8:44 PM
By Mike Zaman
The legislation intended to reform the financial system and as it passed the Senate and House have so many loopholes place in it by congresses Wall Street handlers, that this legislation is a complete sham.
Not only will it not prevent other crises and more taxpayer bailouts in the future, but it guarantees it.
The legislation is full of gaps, and loopholes, but more importantly many provisions of the Law depend on the "effectiveness" of regulatory agencies, who failed to over see the financial sector and mishandled the blooming bubble that took Wall Street and America to the brink of collapse.
A big reason for the bill's limitations is that Wall Street banks and industry groups lobbied against rules they felt would reduce Wall Streets profit-making ability, such things as derivatives, those ...
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5/22/2010
5:53 PM
By Mike Zaman
Comparing Nevada's unemployment on a month to month basis, we see that it doesn't change much. Construction and the tourism industry have been the main focus of Job losses.
With all the hype about the recession nearing the end, well, if you were living in Las Vegas and looking at Nevada's new jobless rate you wouldn't believe it, and they don't either.
Never in the states history have so many people been out of work; a record 193,000. Construction continues to shed jobs; 700 in April alone.
But even more of a concern, if there is any such thing? Nevada saw 1000 job losses in Government jobs in April, as the state, and its subdivision attempt to cope with budgets that are out of balance. But that's because so many people are out of work, and those working are working fewer hours.
Anothe...
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5/18/2010
2:11 PM
US Banks anticipate Taxpayers bailout, in fact they demand it.
By Mike Zaman
There is a saying about history that it will repeat itself until we gain the intelligence to understand. Bailing out America's banks has become a large portion of the American financial landscape. And many are now asking, how long we will continue to put up with it?
Our banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America have come to expect taxpayer handouts, in fact it's built into their systems and it will continue until we say, with a force of numbers "enough"
The 1990's
When Asian markets collapsed in the 1990s, the IMF and U.S. taxpayers spent billions bailing out huge banks like J.P. Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Citicorp and BankAmerica, even though these Wall Street bad guys had raked in Asian profits for decades. Did taxpayers revolt?...
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5/17/2010
7:12 PM
By Mike Zaman
The US taxpayers are on the hook "tax-wise" to the tune of $34 billion, and the song isn't even close to being a hit, it's a small sum against the full weight of the government's attempt to bail out GM and Chrysler, but expect a lot more. We haven't yet seen the return of all Wall Street borrowed, (and used to generate their profits and bonuses, and pay lobbyists and congress to defeat the bank reform bill) and now the FED has pledged $1tn to guarantee the IMF bailout of all of Europe, just where will all this come from? If you think Greece's citizens went wild over the austerity initiatives just wait until you see the south rise up again.
Initially taxpayers were on the hook for the entire $85bn bailout, but the government still believes it will see some additional money returned at least from GM and within the ...
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5/17/2010
5:59 PM
By Mike Zaman
A very famous man made a very profound observation: he said "you can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but, you can't fool all of the people all of the time"
Every other day we are confronted by economists, those pseudo intellects, who in media print attempt to paint a picture that the American economy is moving forward. They fail to mention, by the way, that Americans are still unemployed; actually it's in excess of 11.44% and growing weekly. That equates to more than 17.7 million, and we don't even have the real figures to quote.
So, yes we are in deep "&%$#" as a nation, and as a one time world leader.
However in the real world, not the one our economists live in, the largest US companies see the handwriting on the wall, and it's not from a messen...
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5/17/2010
3:23 PM
By Mike Zaman
As predicted by Obama's close ally, George Soros, who has been shorting the Euro for months. The day of reckoning may not be far off.
European stocks as well as their debts and currency are facing collapse as investors rush into Gold. Even the FED backed IMF $1 trillion loan doesn't appear to be making a difference. Much of Europe is still viewed as potentially set to default as even ($1) trillion may not be enough, and the pot is now empty.
On Friday the euro fell to its lowest level since the intensity of the financial crisis began, and the assault continued into Monday as investors abandoned the currency as well as stocks in favor of gold and other assets viewed as more safe. Astonishingly the Dollar is seen as a safer value, even though the US is in worse financial condition than all of Europe combine...
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