U.S. data show growth still slowing, inflation in check
Nissan to sell $1.3 billion in auto-backed debt
IMF, OECD cut growth forecasts
BOJ boosts bond purchases
U.S. stocks and Treasuries gained ground this week as investors cheered the U.S. Federal Reserve Board’s plan to buy $1 trillion of bonds in an effort to lower consumer borrowing costs and bring an end to the recession. The upward equity move was blunted by week’s end as the Fed’s plan rekindled concerns of inflation, and those worries drove the dollar sharply lower and the price of gold higher. Read the rest of this entry »
TALLAHASSEE — If the Seminole Tribe of Florida follows through with plans to expand its casinos and resorts in Florida, it will siphon off $95 million in annual tourist and convention business from around the state and gain an even greater competitive advantage, according to a story on tampabay.com Friday.
Those were the conclusions of Amy Baker, the Florida Legislature’s chief economist, in a report presented to the House Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review on Friday. The panel is writing legislation to guide the governor on how to renegotiate a new gambling agreement with the tribe.
In an editorial today, the Miami Herald blasts the idea of a 1-cent sales tax hike as regressive. According to the Herald: “As to K-12 funding, legislative leaders have said they will consider everything put on the table. So far they have been lukewarm to: raising the tax on tobacco products; lifting any sales tax exemptions; imposing sales taxes on Internet purchases.”
This week we have been celebrating Sunshine Week – recognizing Florida’s open government laws. We serve the people of Florida with openness and transparency every day. However, every year during this week, we strive to find new ways to make state and local government more accessible to the public. To achieve this goal, today we launched a new Web site,www.FlaRecovery.com.
As you know, these are challenging times for our nation and for our state. Yet, I believe that Florida will weather this storm as we have weathered storms in the past. Brighter days are ahead. We know people are hurting, and that is why I am grateful for Florida’s fair share of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Here’s the deal. Clay County can forget about ever seeing a dime of property taxes being derived from the long-sought outer beltway project. It just isn’t going to happen.
If the roadway is going to be built — and opinions vary whether that should happen — it will have to be with a guarantee that a still-to-be-decided contractor will not have to pay ad valorem taxes to either Duval, Clay or St. Johns counties, where the road will be built.
At least that is the opinion of Rep. Jennifer Carroll, R-Green Cove Springs, who along with Sen. Tony Hill, is pushing legislation to exempt the contractor of the project from paying property taxes, much to the chagrin of many in Clay County. Read the rest of this entry »
Just like you, my wife and I are outraged at the bonus payments made to present and former officials at American Insurance Group, more commonly referred to as AIG (or as it will become known: Ain’t It Great?)
The outrage is understandable. Taxpayers (without a vote on the matter) get to fork over some $170 billion (that’s BILLION, with a B, folks) to bailout a company whose conglomerate Ponzi scheme worked little better than little ol’ Bernie Madoff’s one-man backroom operation.
Here’s the rub for me, the $170 billion — or to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, “A billion here a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money.” — is money the U.S government said it had to give to AIG to “bail them out” because they were so deep in hock and and so big we couldn’t afford to allow them to fail. Read the rest of this entry »
World finance ministers gather to find ways to battle recession
U.S. retail sales show stabilization
Madoff jailed
GE, Berkshire Hathaway downgraded
Brazil and Switzerland cut rates
Market optimism returned in full force this week after Citibank, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase said they made money during the first two months of the year. Around the world, stock markets rallied on hopes that stability was returning to the financial sector. Citibank kicked off the markets’ rise when it said it was having its best quarter since 2007. The news sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 379 points Tuesday, thereby kicking off a week of gains. Read the rest of this entry »
Thanks to Larry Horne of Clay Electric for supplying a link to the following letter:
In a letter to President Obama, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Glenn English voiced strong objections to the Administration’s plan to auction the carbon emission allowances under a cap and trade scheme.
In the letter, English pointed out that “[s]uch a program would only serve as a backdoor, variable tax on consumers. Even worse, the level of the tax would be determined by Wall Street and large multi-national energy companies who would likely be the highest bidders in any auction.”
Just a few random thoughts this week about topics in general. I am recovering from a dastardly chest cold that has short-circuited my brain cells, so there is really not much of a creative effort going on up there this week (as if there ever is.) That accounts for the lack of new content on the site, which is a definite handicap for a one-person operation.
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I have a favor to ask of you. If you are so inclined, go to
and cast a vote for a photo I posted (seen here) of Rusty the wonder beagle. I took the photo at Christmas and as you can plainly see, Rusty wasn’t very fond of the antler horns. I could never get a photo of him
Please vote for Rusty the wonder beagle. See details in story.
actually wearing the horns but his expression is just too priceless. So, vote if your can or will and I will gladly share with you a portion of the winnings (a $25 gift card). Depending on how many of you take me up on it, we could be talking of no more than a stick of gum apiece.
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Speaking of cheap, did you hear about the price of a share of CitiGroup the other day? Around $1. Boy, was I tempted to pull our money out of the safety and security of my investment portfolio (talk about an oxymoron) and buy some of that cheap paper. Then I decided, no, I would just buy a Coke instead, since that is about all that was left after last year’s roller-coaster ride in the stock market. I am going to leave it to smarter people than me to figure out how to handle this mess, but I guarantee you I am not throwing good money after bad (if you get my drift, President Obama).
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I am glad to see that saner heads have prevailed in some of the school-based decisions on which teachers to cut after the Read the rest of this entry »
Stocks fell around the world this week as investors remained skeptical of the U.S. government’s effort to bail out the financial sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to a six-year low on Thursday, while Japan’s Topix stock index tumbled to its lowest level in 25 years. As the selling ensued, Treasuries rallied, and gold rose above $1,000 per ounce.
U.S. economic news Obama administration takes aggressive stance to hall foreclosures U.S. President Barack Obama pledged $275 billion for a program to cut mortgage payments for struggling homeowners and expand the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in curbing Read the rest of this entry »
posted
Mar 23, 2009 by Lamar Thames
