Economics

Wall Street Journal | Tech-jobs website operator Dice Holdings Inc. said salaries for software and other engineering professionals in California's Silicon Valley rose 5.2% to an average $104,195 last year, outstripping the average 2% increase, to $81,327, in tech-workers' salaries nationwide. It was the first time since Dice began the salary survey in 2001 that the wage barometer broke the $100,000 barrier, said Tom Silver, a Dice senior vice president.

Wall Street Journal | As banks prepare to report fourth-quarter results and make final bonus decisions for 2011, total compensation is likely to be the lowest since 2008, when the financial crisis destroyed some firms and left many survivors on government life support.

Al Jazeera | A smattering of states, blue and red alike, have taken tentative steps to reduce their prison populations. Yet overall, the incarceration rate remains flat even as crime levels decrease and budget deficits grow. And on the federal level, the numbers of prisoners just keep growing; Congress, meanwhile, can't even manage to pass a bill to study criminal justice reforms, much less make them.

Financial Times | When 1,200 partners of McKinsey&Company – the elite of global consulting – arrived at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center, outside Washington DC, early on the morning of March 15 this year, they found themselves where they least wanted to be: at the centre of a media firestorm.

The Diplomat | 40% of Chinese are unhappy and 60% of China’s rich are emigrating or considering doing so. While each group has its reasons – farmers resent land seizures, city dwellers are victims of government abuse – it translates to a hotbed of popular discontent that could shatter China’s economic stability.

The Guardian | If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy.

Mother Jones | The Jets just won their game and I'm in a good mood. So I guess it's time to head over to the ol' computer and see what's up in the world today. I wonder what the Washington Post has for us? Just one short click and — oh crap...

Wall Street Journal |The move is a dramatic retreat following decisions by several rivals in recent days to drop customer tests of the new fees. SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. also said Monday that they will stop charging customers for debit-card transactions.

LA Times | Private equity firms are investing in chains of used-car lots, and auto loans are being packaged into securities much like subprime mortgages. They're attracted by the industry's average profit of 38% for each car sold

Think Progress | Police across the country have been violently cracking down on the Occupy protesters, leading to the serious head injury of Iraq veteran Scott Olsen. As Salon Justin Elliot notes today, New York City police are trying a different tactic to “undermine the credibility of Occupy Wall Street.”

Boing Boing | On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes.

Anti-war.com | Since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, the New York Federal Reserve has been shipping tens of billions of dollars to the government and central bank of Iraq, ostensibly for reconstruction and resumption of governmental services after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Alternet | What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us. 

Crooks and Liars | And this is why we've been screaming about regulating derivatives! I kind of think that the Occupy movement is going to have something to say about this corporate sleight of hand that came to light earlier this week. Do they really think we're going to look the other way and let them stick us with a $74 trillion bill -- just to let good old "too big to fail" Bank of America off the hook?

Reuters | A New Jersey man sued Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on Wednesday on behalf of ATM users, accusing the banks of colluding to fix the fees they charge customers to withdraw money.

Daily Bail | This story from Bloomberg just hit the wires this morning.  Bank of America is shifting derivatives in its Merrill investment banking unit to its depository arm, which has access to the Fed discount window and is protected by the FDIC.

Wall Street Journal | Wall Street's total price tag on settlements with U.S. securities regulators for allegedly misleading investors about mortgage bonds churned out ahead of the financial crisis surged past $1 billion with a deal by Citigroup Inc. to pay $285 million.

Business Insider | Maryland sold $595 million in new debt on February 24 taking advantage of the new Build American Bond provision in the U.S. stimulus bill and their solid credit rating, however, in contrast, California is planning on a bond issuance of $5 billion in March.

Business Insider | There are cities in Florida where foreclosures are still rising, blotting out any chance of recovery in home prices. The mayor of Detroit plans to demolish a quarter of the city to get a handle on his real estate problem. Homeless communities are growing on the outskirts of Sacramento.

Washington Post | The grim prospect of a transit agency already burdened with a system that has deteriorated after decades of deferred maintenance and yet will face significant new demand was served up Friday as a microcosm of the nation’s dilemma.

Credit Union Times | Credit unions across the land are “seizing this marketing opportunity”, as CUNA officials put it Tuesday, to take advantage of the favorable industry media coverage following the announcement of Bank of America’s $5 monthly debit fee.

The Local | The German state of North-Rhine Westphalia bought for about €3 million a CD-ROM some months ago containing information on the bank accounts held by Germans in Luxembourg, said the newspaper.

The Gaurdian | Britain's tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven £10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme.

Bloomberg | Mark D. Schwartz, a Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania-based lawyer and former head of municipal bonds for Prudential Financial Inc.’s mid-Atlantic region, said he filed the documents by fax to a federal bankruptcy court last night. The filing couldn’t be confirmed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Harrisburg.

Reuters | With large multinational companies today pressing Congress for another tax holiday, the Institute for Policy Studies reported that the last one did not fulfill its rosy promises for hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers.

MSNBC | The small group of assembled activists applaud its look. “I love the kitschiness of it. It’s so ‘Laura Ashley’ English — perfect for a protest,” one says, namechecking the British brand known for its prim-and-proper fashions.

Video | 'They would not let me get past that barricade, where those three guys are. I talked to the liutenant of the St. Louis Police Department - and he said they [customers?] don't have a legal right - but he was going to try to work out something, a symbolic gesture where eight people to pull out their money, I being one of them.'

Alternet | As the ongoing occupation of Wall Street by hundreds of protesters enters its third week — and as protests spread to other cities such as Boston and Los Angeles — demonstrators have endorsed a new slogan: “We are the 99 percent.” This slogan refers to an economic struggle between 99 percent of Americans and the richest 1 percent of Americans, who are increasingly accumulating a greater share of the national wealth to the detriment of the middle class.

PC Mag | Anonymous declared "war" on the New York Stock Exchange this weekend and vowed to "erase" the NYSE from the Internet on Oct. 10 as the Occupy Wall Street protest entered its third week in New York City after a weekend that saw hundreds of protesters arrested during a planned march across the Brooklyn Bridge.

ABC News | Bank of America will start charging debit-card users $5 a month to pay for purchases. The move comes as the cards increasingly replace cash and as banks look for ways to offset the loss of revenue from a new rule that will limit how much they can collect from merchants.

End of the American Dream | Millions upon millions of young Americans have completely lost faith in the U.S. economy and are mad as hell that their economic futures have been destroyed.  The recent economic downturn has hit those under the age of 30 the hardest.  Today, there are hordes of young people that should be entering their most productive years that are sitting home with nothing to do.  Many of them have worked incredibly hard throughout high school and college. 

The Guardian | The EU has been warned that it must plan for the fallout of what it believes is Greece's inevitable default.  European Union governments will spend the next six weeks building a financial firewall to protect their fragile banking systems against what is now seen as an inevitable Greek default.

Think Progress | Today, over a thousand demonstrators began protests as a part of a campaign they are calling “Occupy Wall Street.” The protesters intend to engage in long-term civil disobedience to draw attention to Wall Street’s misdeeds and call for structural economic reforms. RT America covered the start of the campaign. Watch it:

Business Insider | Bank of America plans to cut 30,000 jobs as it re-focuses its business on international and corporate lending, it said in a company statement.  There's been word that the jobs will be cut in the U.S., but there is not confirmation of that today. The announcement simply refers to "layoffs," with no mention of whether it's globally or not.

Daily Mail | A 70-year-old woman and her terminally ill husband face losing their home because she paid her mortgage a week early.  Sharon Bullington, of New Port Richey, Florida, says that Bank of America has filed to foreclose on her and husband, James, 78.  Mrs Bullington said: 'It's like death to me. My husband is bedridden. It's almost more than I can bear.'

BBC | A US senator is demanding answers to an allegation that America's top financial regulator has destroyed thousands of preliminary investigation records.  Senator Charles Grassley has written to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to query the claims by an internal whistleblower.

Think Progress |  Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then quietly went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line.

Wall Street Journal | In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial institutions, Main Street's chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank.

Market Oracle | However, with the use of futures, you have to have margin capacity behind the trade. That means with a single push of a button someone was willing to commit more than $1 billion of real capital to this trade with expectations of a 10-to-1 return ratio.

Business Week | There is a comforting story about the debt ceiling that goes like this: Back in the 1990s, the U.S. was shrinking its national debt at a rapid pace. Serious people actually worried about dislocations from having too little government debt.

C-SPAN | The Senate voted 59-41 to table, or discard, the House bill, after which Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brought up his version of a debt ceiling bill, which lasts through 2012 and cuts $2.2 billion in spending.  6 Republicans joined 51 Democrats and two Independents to table the Boehner plan. Republicans voting to table were: DeMint (SC), Graham (SC), Hatch (UT), Lee (UT), Paul (KY), and Vitter (LA).

Bloomberg | Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

The New Yorker | In the fall of 2003, Anil Kumar, a senior executive with the consulting firm McKinsey, and Raj Rajaratnam, the head of a multibillion-dollar hedge fund called Galleon, attended a charity event in Manhattan. They had known each other since the early eighties, when, as recent immigrants, they were classmates at the Wharton School of Business, in Philadelphia

Bernie Sanders Senate.gov website | The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Russia Today | President Obama has warned the US is running out of time to deal with its financial troubles - the Congress must raise the current $14.3-trillion debt ceiling again. And as Professor Rodrigue Tremblay told RT, this has become a tradition in the US.

The Daily Bail | Njoku was taken to jail on June 24, 2010, which was a Thursday. The next day, Chase Special Investigations, realized it was a mistake. The check was legitimate. The Investigator called Auburn Police and left a message with the detective handling the case, but it was her day off. So Njoku stayed in jail for the entire weekend. Finally, on Monday, he was released.

Video | The following was posted in a youtube description for a video released by the hacker group "Anonymous"

Salon.com - Glenn Greenwald | According to Rahmatullah Nazari, the deputy attorney general, authorities arrested Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank, and Khalilulah Frozi, its former chief executive officer, on Wednesday in connection with what he said was hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans to bank officers and insiders. . . .

CNBC | The Fed's lack of disclosure is making it difficult for the inspector general to follow the paper trail of billions of dollars that went missing in the chaotic rush to finance the Iraq occupation, and to determine how much of that money was stolen.

Grist | Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who was Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, says that the Pentagon spends $20 billion a year just to air condition tents and temporary buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's more than NASA's entire annual budget.