Help The Middle Class

OPINION: Wall Street Profits While Main Street Suffers (New York TImes)

Man In The Middle — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:35:59 +0000

In a 1964 concurring opinion deciding Jacobellis v. Ohio, Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote about “hard-core pornography” and his struggle to define it: “Perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.”

Using Potter’s indisputable logic, it’s hard not to see something obscene in how Wall Street reaped massive profits and bonuses in 2009 — and continues to do so, as is clear from Monday’s announcement by Citigroup that it had earned $4.4 billion in the first quarter of 2010, which was even more than earned by Bank of America ($3.2 billion) and JPMorgan Chase ($3.3 billion) in the same period — merely 18 months after trillions of dollars of American taxpayers’ treasure was used to save a financial system brought to the precipice by Wall Street’s greed and irresponsible risk-taking. Goldman Sachs, which is facing a civil fraud suit filed by Washington regulators, is expected to report robust earnings Tuesday morning as well.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: You’re Welcome, Wall Street – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

RETIREMENT ALERT: 6 WAYS YOU’RE SABOTAGING YOUR RETIREMENT (SF GATE/INVESTOPEDIA)

Man In The Middle — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:09:08 +0000

Millions of senior citizens are discovering that they do not have adequate financial resources to retire. Some seniors are unable to retire due to the recent economic crisis and others due to poor financial habits. The stark truth is this: financial decisions that you make on a daily basis have a direct impact on your financial future. Poor financial habits will have you working longer, retiring later and finding yourself flat broke in your golden years. Here are six financial habits that could be keeping you from reaching your retirement dreams.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE SF GATE & INVESTOPEDIA: 6 Things Youre Doing To Delay Your Retirement.

2010’s Worst-Selling Housing Markets (Forbes.com)

Man In The Middle — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:18:24 +0000

Miami-area home sellers looking to unload their properties might want to make sure they have comfortable couches.

It looks like they’re going to be there a while.

That’s because Miami tops our list of the nation’s most sedentary housing markets. These 10 spots feature a potent mix of dropping prices and sluggish sales rates. Also on the list: Denver; San Diego; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Tampa, Fla.; Phoenix; Orlando, Fla.; and Chicago.

In compiling our list, we looked at price growth and sales rates in the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas. We took the cities in the midst of year-over-year price declines, based on National Association of Realtors data, then calculated how quickly these cities are shedding inventory from their peaks, which occurred between four and six months ago, based on data fromZipRealty (nasdaq: ZIPR - news - people), an aggregator of multiple listing service data. Atlanta, a likely contender for the top ten, was not considered due to irregularities in inventory reporting.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO FORBES: America’s Worst-Selling Housing Markets – Forbes.com.

13 Things Your Pharmacist Won’t Tell You (Readers Digest)

Man In The Middle — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 06:00:17 +0000

What to bear in mind the next time you visit the pharmacy counter.

1. Don’t try to get anything past us. Prescriptions for painkillers or sleeping aids always get extra scrutiny.

2. We’re not serving fries in here. I’d think twice about using a drive-through pharmacy. Working there distracts us-not a good thing when it comes to pharmaceuticals.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/13-things-your-pharmacist-wont-tell-you-1262037/;_ylt=AlBe5S8IG0EER57A71P5ophhbqU5

Fannie Mae Executives Face Probe. Must Explain Risky Mortage Decisions (Yahoo! News)

Man In The Middle — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:46:39 +0000

Two former Fannie Mae executives said Friday that competitive pressures, combined with the political goal of increasing homeownership, were to blame for the company’s decision to back riskier mortgages that fueled the housing bubble.

Daniel Mudd, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, and Robert Levin, the company’s former chief business officer, testified before a panel examining the roots of the financial crisis.

Levin said company executives were concerned about losing relevance as Wall Street companies issued mortgage securities and stole market share.

“It posed a number of threats to the company,” Levin told the panel, adding, “Could we really sit out? Would we be permitted to sit out? That’s what we were grappling with.”

As the market turned down, Mudd noted “virtually every other housing sector investor fled the market.” Fannie and sibling company Freddie Mac “were specifically required to take up the slack.”

Both executives left Washington-based Fannie Mae after it was seized by regulators in fall 2008. Also scheduled to appear Friday were James Lockhart and Armando Falcon, both of whom headed up the federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The inquiry is being held by the congressionally chartered Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Congress created the commission last year to examine the causes of the crisis. The panel’s goal is to get an in-depth understanding of decisions that inflated the mortgage bubble and triggered a financial crisis that tipped the economy into the longest recession in 70 years. Its report is due Dec. 15.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK: Ex-Fannie Mae execs try to defend track record – Yahoo! News.

Autism Signs Appear in Babies’ First Year (Health Key)

Man In The Middle — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:16:59 +0000

The social disengagement that is the hallmark of autism-spectrum disorders begins to appear in the second half of a baby’s first year of life, according to a new study. But Californiaresearchers found that parents typically do not notice the decline in their child’s behavior until well into his or her second year.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is among the first to glean the pattern of autism’s emergence in very young children by following babies from the age of 6 months. At that age, babies who would go on to be diagnosed as autistic and babies who would develop typically showed no significant differences in social behaviors, including smiling, making eye contact and vocalizing responsively.

The study calls into question the bases on which much early speculation about and research on autism and its causes have been based: parental observation. For starters, the study found little to support the observations of some parents that their baby showed symptoms of extreme social disengagement from birth. But it also cast doubt on the accuracy of parents’ reports that their baby’s descent into autism was sudden and dramatic.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO HEALTH KEY:Autism Signs Appear in Babies’ First Year – Health Key.

Obama Still Plans On ‘Redistribution Of Wealth’ To Pay For Deficit (Los Angeles Times)

Man In The Middle — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:11:15 +0000

Reporting from Washington

With enactment of his signature healthcare law, President Obama has also made good on another major campaign promise: to ease the tax burden on middle-class Americans and pay for his domestic agenda by raising taxes on the wealthy. And for upper-income taxpayers, the tab for healthcare is just the beginning.

Families earning more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 will not only pay new healthcare-related taxes, but also face the likely expiration of upper-income tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush. As a result, these Americans could be tapped for about $650 billion in additional taxes over the next 10 years — a prospect that is loaded with both political opportunity and peril.

Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress, faced with the need to pay for healthcare while also trying to rein in the deficit, see a chance to limit some of the political and economic pain by putting more of the burden on the country’s highest earners. But Republicans are already hammering Obama for leading a broad-scale redistribution of income that could threaten the economic recovery.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tax burden mounting for high earners – latimes.com.

Obama’s Nuclear Policy, Something For The ‘Left & Right’ (Los Angeles Times)

Man In The Middle — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:58:39 +0000

President Obama and his senior aides introduced a new nuclear weapons policy Tuesday with the promise that America would no longer build new nuclear weapons.

“No new testing, no new warheads,” Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged in a Pentagon briefing.

Yet officials said later that the policy could allow them to bring back older, tested warhead components and designs to build what would be, for all practical purposes, a new weapon.

The administration’s hedge on the warhead issue was but one example of the caution built into a policy portrayed as a groundbreaking effort to reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons.

Although Obama campaigned on a pledge to overhaul nuclear policy, administration officials listened closely to the more conservative advice of Pentagon officials in a yearlong study, said people close to the discussions. And they were sensitive to the need to win Republican votes in the Senate for ratification this year of a new arms control treaty with Russia.

The nuclear weapons policy sets limits on the use of U.S. warheads, declaring some countries off-limits even in wartime, as a step toward reducing U.S. reliance on its most destructive weapons.

The new policy came two days before Obama travels to Prague, Czech Republic, to sign the new arms reduction treaty with Russia and the week before he holds an international nuclear summit in Washington.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: Obama’s nuclear policy walks careful line – latimes.com.

ECONOMY RECOVERY? Blockbuster, Borders & Rite Aid ‘On The Edge Of Bankruptcy’ (Investopedia.com)

Man In The Middle — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:43:06 +0000

Many major companies like Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things went bankrupt during the economic crisis of 2008-2009. These companies folded under high debt levels and a decline in sales. Just because some companies were able to survive the economic downturn of the past few years doesn’t mean they are out of the woods yet. Companies like Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI) and Borders (NYSE:BGP) are going down with their industries, meaning that making drastic changes is their only option. Here are five major companies that are struggling – it is unlikely that all will survive.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO INVESTOPEDIA.COM: Businesses On The Brink: Change Or Fail? – Investopedia.com.

7 New Taxes Laws You Need To Know About (Bankrate.com)

Man In The Middle — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:29:26 +0000

Facing a struggling economy, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., turned to the tax code to help get it, and us consumers, moving again. Most of the tax changes were part of the stimulus package enacted last February, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. There are seven new tax laws you should know, and some old tax laws with new amounts adjusted for inflation.

Tax breaks were created, or in some cases expanded, for autos and home purchases, as well as for certain residential improvements. Uncle Sam now pays more of some educational costs. Some workers get bigger tax benefits to offset their commute to work. Folks who no longer have jobs at least get some tax relief. Even how you pay your IRS bill could turn into a deduction.

Here’s a look at some popular tax laws that could come in handy as you work on your 2009 tax return.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO BANKRATE.COM7 new tax laws to know.