392 replies to this topic

[dogmom4]

A couple of weeks ago we planted a grapevine in our preschool play yard. It was growing nicely and starting to vine into the fence. Yesterday we went out to the playground to find someone had dug it up and taken it over the weekend. I'm hoping no one takes the apple trees we just planted. Just sad. Hard to explain to the children.

Edited by dogmom4, 01 May 2012 - 06:35 PM.

[Mt_Rider]

Guess if folks are stealing TIDE detergent, this sort of thing will come along inevitably.

MtRider [ stealing from the children! ]

[Jori]

They stole the grape vine from a bunch of preschoolers! ?!?! That is beyond awful. Those poor kids. :-(

I ran into walmart last night around 7. I was shocked at the change in the shoppers. I don't go at night unless we can't wait until morning. I mentioned it to DH and he said it's the last day if the month and cards are recharged. I reminded him it was too early for the money to be released on cards. Our stores have seen an influx of the cards being used once funds are put on them on the first of the month at midnight, and not just on the first day of the month.

[dogmom4]

Yesterday the husband of one of the paras that works in my classroom went in to work and was told he was laid off after working for a business for 12 years. Then went in to work this morning to hear that the county autism clinic workers got their pink slips this morning.... I am very glad to still have a job...

[CrabGrassAcres]

The ALCOA plant near me has cut back even further. Not sure how many are laid off this time. I had noticed that the conveyer belt from the coal mine has gone silent. Ever since I've been here (7 yrs) it has sounded like continuous heavy truck traffic. Apparently Sandow mine is no longer being actively mined for coal.

My realtor that I have the farm listed with, has had to take a full time job out of town. He said the real estate sales have about dried up because the banks won't lend. This is in an area of the country where real estate prices and jobs have been steadier than most.

[Mt_Rider]

Businesses dropping all over. Who is John Gault?

Not sounding good, is it? Sounds like only God can sell your place, CGA and move you and DD.

Glad you and your DH have jobs, Dogmom!!

DH applying for another low-pay job to supplement part-time chiro office. The one he used before to supplement our income canceled contracts on half their opperations. All his co-workers lost their jobs a couple months ago. [tho that was poor management rather than the economy ] We switched vehicles so he's now driving to the city only 3X/week in a small car. Trying to bob and weave.

MtRider

[Jeepers]

My son is down to 4 days a week for another month. He'll see if he has a regular 5 day week after that. Right now he is glad he still has 4 days as opposed to nothing at all. Praying the company stays in business. Also next week he goes on the day shift for 2 weeks. This throws off his 'internal time clock' and he also loses his second shift differential pay. Scary times for him.

[mi_familia]

Gas jumped 22 cents in 24 hours here - anyone else see that?

[Daylily]

Gas has actually gone down about 20 cents/gallon here.

[CrabGrassAcres]

http://abcnews.go.co...=1#.T7Ar-WHq5mM

D A L L A S, May 8 The slumping personal computer business was hit by more bad news as Dell Computer Corp. executives announced another round of layoffs, this time cutting 3,000 to 4,000 jobs.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, the world's largest PC manufacturer, said Mon … the latest cuts would occur over the next six months, and mostly in central Texas. Many employees who escape layoffs will be forced to take unpaid time off, the company said.

In February, Dell announced plans to lay off 1,700.

Once-Mighty Dell Falls Flat

Job cuts were once unheard of at Dell, as double-digit gains in PC sales made it a stock market phenomenon in the late 1990s. The company expanded its work force rapidly until late last year. PC sales then went flat, and they never recovered.

"The U.S. economic slowdown is larger than we and everyone else believed even a few weeks ago, and some competitors are virtually giving their products away," Dell executives wrote in an e-mail to employees. "Reducing our employment for the second time this year is a difficult but necessary decision we didn't anticipate having to make."

Sales, Marketing & Engineering Take a Hit

Most of the layoffs will be in sales and marketing, engineering and other parts of the company located in or near Round Rock, especially in management ranks and support services, Dell spokesman T.R. Reid said.

Some manufacturing jobs also will be cut. The company said it would consolidate all notebook computer production at a plant near Nashville, Tenn., instead of dividing it between Tennessee and a plant in central Texas.

Dell said it still expects to meet its previous financial projections of $8 billion in revenue and 17 cents of earnings per share when it reports results for the first quarter on May 17. Dell said it remains "cautious" about the outlook for the rest of the year.

"Obviously, this means the business isn't getting better," said Daniel Niles, an analyst for Lehman Brothers. "They see it's going to be a rough couple of quarters, and they've got to get their cost structure in order."

[arby]

JP Morgan took a 2 billion dollar hit... this week. Not sure how much that will affect other financials but they are 'nervous'. Not sure if this will solidify another downgrade to our national 'credit' rating. I think that is due sometime in June or July .

[dogmom4]

Got gas today and it has gone up 18 cents over the past 2 days.

[arby]

yahoo news JP Morgan article today:
JPMorgan CIO chief Drew quits after trading loss
ReutersReuters – 14 minutes ago



Companies:

JPMorgan Chase & Co.



Commuters are reflected in stone as they walk past the JP Morgan headquarters in New York on May 11, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo MunozView Photo

Commuters are reflected in stone as they walk past the JP Morgan headquarters in New York on May 11, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Fantasy Finance

By Matt Scuffham and David Henry

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co sacrificed investment chief Ina Drew on Monday in response to trading losses that could reach $3 billion or more and which have tainted the reputation of the bank's high profile chief executive Jamie Dimon.

The biggest bank in the United States by assets said Drew, its New York-based chief investment officer and one of its highest-paid executives, would retire. The statement confirmed what sources close to the matter had previously told Reuters, that Drew would depart the firm.

It also said Matt Zames would take Drew's position, while Daniel Pinto, currently co-head of global fixed income with Zames, would become sole head of the group.

Mike Cavanagh, CEO of the Treasury & Securities Services (TSS) group, will lead a team of executives overseeing and co-ordinating the group's response to the recent losses.

The statement made no mention of two of Drew's subordinates who were involved with the costly derivatives trades, London-based Achilles Macris and Javier Martin-Artajo, who the sources had also said were expected to leave.

Neither could be reached for comment earlier on Monday. A woman who answered the door at Macris's London apartment in a grandiose 19th century mansion block overlooking Westminster Cathedral said he was at work.

JPMorgan said Cavanagh "will ensure that best practices and lessons learned are carried across the firm."

The departure of Drew after 30 years at JPMorgan comes after the unit she ran, known as the Chief Investment Office (CIO), mismanaged a portfolio of derivatives tied to the creditworthiness of bonds, according to bank executives.

The portfolio included layers of instruments used in hedging that became too complicated to work and too big to quickly unwind in the esoteric, thinly traded market.

One hedge fund manager who previously ran a proprietary (or prop) trading book at JPMorgan said the bank's public commitments to trim balance sheet risk were at odds with its network of trading silos, who were making bets independently with only a handful of the bank's most senior executives notified of their vast, complex exposures.

"This (CIO) group was completely separate, completely distinct from the prop trading unit. We had no clue about their prop book and they would have no clue about ours for that matter," the manager said.

"They were all totally independent. All the activities were reported to New York and they ran the allocation of capital to each and every strategy ... those decisions were definitely not taken in London. These things were very, very opaque. Every bank is, whether you're Goldman, Morgan (Stanley) or JP."

PAST PERFORMANCE

Drew had repeatedly offered to resign in recent weeks after the magnitude of the debacle became clear, according to one of the sources, but the resignation was not immediately accepted because of her past performance at the bank.

Until the loss was disclosed late on Thursday, Drew was considered by some market participants as one of the best managers of balance sheet risks. She earned more than $15 million in each of the last two years.

"Ina is an amazing investor," said a money manager who knows Drew, but who declined to be quoted by name. "She's done a really good job over a lot of years. But they only remember your last trade."

Departures had been on the cards in the wake of the trading losses, though in disclosing the losses on Thursday, CEO Jamie Dimon said only that the bank was continuing to investigate and would take disciplinary action with those involved.

Dimon said the bank's losses could reach $3 billion or more as it unwinds the positions in coming months.

The losses have marred JPMorgan's reputation for risk management, prompted a downgrade in its credit ratings and thrown an unflattering spotlight on Dimon, a critic of increased regulation who had become one of America's best-known bankers.

On Sunday, Dimon's reputation was tarnished when the New York Times reported remarks he made recently at a dinner party in Dallas. Dimon called arguments about too-big-to-fail banks - arguments made by former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas - "infantile" and "nonfactual," according to the Times.

STOP THE CYCLE

Dimon is himself a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Elizabeth Warren called for him to resign that post on Sunday. Warren, who chaired the congressional committee that oversaw the bank bailout program known as TARP and is running for the Senate, said he should not be on the panel advising the Fed on bank management and oversight.

"We need to stop the cycle of bankers taking on risky activities, getting bailed out by the taxpayers, then using their army of lobbyists to water down regulations," Warren said.

Dimon has struck a more contrite pose since revealing the losses. In an interview that aired on Sunday, he told NBC's "Meet the Press" the bank's handling and oversight of the derivative portfolio was "sloppy" and "stupid" and that executives had reacted badly to warnings last month that the bank had large losses in derivatives trading.

He said executives were "completely wrong" in public statements they made in April after being challenged over the trades in news reports. "We got very defensive. And people started justifying everything we did," Dimon said. "We told you something that was completely wrong a mere four weeks ago.

The loss, and Dimon's failure to heed the warnings, have become major embarrassments and have given regulators new arguments for tightening controls on big banks and requiring them to hold more capital to cushion possible losses.

Issues relating to the bank's internal controls were raised in 2010 when it was fined 33 million pounds by Britain's Financial Services Authority for failing to segregate client month from its own in the UK - an incident that also led to its auditor PwC being fined 1.4 million by its professional body for failing to spot the transgression.

No-one at PwC, JPM's global auditor, could immediately be reached for comment.

JPMorgan lost $15 billion in stock market value the day after the latest loss announcement.

Dimon is scheduled to speak on Tuesday at the bank's annual meeting in Tampa, Florida.

(Additional reporting by Carrick Mollenkamp in New York, Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina and Drazen Jorgic in London; Editing by David Holmes)

[arby]

Other news , California Budget Crisis, Jerry Brown, Gov on Foxnews this morning admits debt is 16 Billion... differing from 8+Billion estimate in Jan 2012....
Explanation is that only few high end incomes really exist anymore in isolated pockets, Hollywood industry, Silicon Valley ( and that is greatly diminished now that so much is going overseas), while only very poor or minimum income sorts ( other than union teachers and LEO) but their austerity measures and pensions are really messed up....
More cuts to come to services, etc.

As we all looked at this start up badly a few years ago, so it progresses..... Just like Greece has done and cannot work out currently. The EU will probably vote them out....

One of the things Gov J. Brown said was the Feds refused to allow a lot of the changes and cuts he knew had to be made to get this under control. So this adds to the difficulties of trying to right the wrongs on the budget in California.

[The MacKinnon]

I was concerned by the story about the DHS official commenting on expecting a civil war here in the US either later this summer or around election time. The story has some credibility to it but whether or not this "official" was just commenting out of frustration or sending up a sort of "pre-trial balloon" or something else is anyone's guess. However, Ready Made Resources picked up on the comments as did a few other companies. We were able to get in on a "buy 6 [cases] get one free" offer from Amish Meats or something (DH did order and the company was recommended by a very trusted prepper friend). Figured it couldn't hurt to lay in another food supply.

If you have an iPhone, there is an app called "prep and pantry". You can use your iPhone at the grocery store as you purchase supplies. You can inventory your pantry at home as well, then the app will sort your stuff, including expiration date and help you keep track of your supplies. Of course, I've been so busy with my mom and school, that I haven't actually used the app yet... but when I do, I'll report back. Lord knows, I need all the help I can get in keeping up with things. I don't know if there is a similar app for Droid phones.

I also got a Kindle copy of The Survival Mom's (Lisa Bedford) book. I think it's pretty good - quite low key to encourage those who might not be open to 'survival' prepping. I'm ordering a hard copy for my DD and getting a copy for myself. So far, so good.

[arby]

A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer.


http://www.reuters.c...E8500K220120601

too tuckered out today to copy and paste correctly, so if someone else can put the whole article up Id appreciate it.

[arby]

http://www.huffingto..._n_1559062.html

ewwww.

[arby]

ok, cant find consumer affairs...... update on Diamond Pet Foods recall again....
http://www.foodsafet...EJhz2M.facebook

it goes to a website about it not FB.

I am tuckered out. You ever get so tired you wobble when you sit? Remember weebles????

[Ambergris]

But weebles don't fall down, and you're probably ready to.

[out_of_the_ordinary]

DH was in a local gun store today. He overheard one of the guys working there tell a customer "You have to buy it when you see it if you want it. It probably won't be here next time you're in." These weren't pressure sales tactics, either. Last time we were in there, I overheard a phone call about how certain things have been on backorder for so long (6+ months) that they have no idea when they'll get them in. That's how it is with certain guns now.

I read something recently in one of the NRA magazines about gun manufacturers not being able to keep up with demand.