only 4? I'd say with about 5-6 billion less people.

Get us down to about 3-4 billion tops. I'd prefer 2 billion to be brutally honest.

Big fan of dinosaur rule, are you?

hmm?

International Programs - estimated world population back to 10,000 BC

Before we start daydreaming about the death of billions of people, how about we increase our resource efficiency first... otherwise you just kill off a few billion people and all the resulting 'wealth' that frees up from that doesn't end up making everyone X% better, it means you still have your shit job and shit life and crazy ass speculators ('like me' says my best Joker impression) increase their balance sheet numbers by the difference.

Malthus is more about the collapse of ecosystems than magically fixing our economy my peoples! I'll admit of course trying to make a standard of living with ten billion people versus five billion is obviously harder.

not sure if this is the same thread I said GE would be a buy and I hoped they would keep the credit rating. I have been nibbling my way in and they cut their dividend today which while making that crazy yield more in line with the rest of their peers (im talking about financials since theyre being traded as if they were one) it is soooo good that they did this. Im very excited about this play over the next few weeks and intend on nibbling a little more next week while I expect it to fall a bit more before rebounding with a market rebound (short term). See if Im right and this time I have the smallest of holding but a holding nonetheless as opposed to the calls Ive been right on and never profited from :( (dont get me wrong, I have been more wrong than right and have lost money along with most people)

Can someone tell me why Capital One jacked up everyone's credit card interest rate to 29.4%, even for those customers in good standing?

because they're in an unregulated industry that will soon have the eyes of the government turned on them in about a few years?

Because they're technically insolvent and need to get every penny they possibly can if they intend to stay in business?

What do you guys recommend as a good credit card company with reasonable rates?

We've switched our credit card to JPM Chase (already had checking there), as I'd say that's one of the few banks likely to survive. Wells Fargo should also make it.

Capital One just sent me a notice that due to my low balance and infrequent use, my rates were being jacked up. Something like 15% or so. Kind of funny, I transferred a balance there last year because they offered 0% for a year, so I never used it, just paid down my balance. I now have like $50 on it and I guess I'll close it since their rewards start at 20,000 points and the interest rate is high.

Yeah, but think how much less annoying having the shit job & shit life would be with only half as many useless idiots around. That alone has to be worth something.

As it should be. They offered great rates for years and people flocked to them. Now that they are chosing to screw the pooch, then they would suffer any consequences of such actions. Meanwhile, consumers have plenty of other options to choose from. The government's only role is to prevent monopolistic and predatory practices.

Actually, it's about to be regulated. Bill was passed a month or so ago but CC companies said "wait, we can't get our computers updated until 2010". Yeah, they seem to be able to screw people at the drop of a hat but if you want to take money out of their pockets, it's 18 months of continued gouging. So, in short, CC companies are trying to grab what they can right now before the rules are put into place.

Congress pushes for credit card relief - Jan. 19, 2009

Not only that, but I'd argue there needs to be substantial regulation as your credit score is tied to opening and closing credit cards. If you wanted to shop around and change credit cards whenever yours changed their terms, you'd take a hit on your credit score. They know that and take advantage of it.

Frankly, I have a Capital One card but I pay it off every month so I'm basically using them for their convenience and rewards. I've already had WaMu cancel a card of mine earlier this year for a lack of use without so much as a warning- I got a letter saying "this card is going to be discontinued as of Dec" in November and that was it.

SI

Yeah, the fat that changing to a better card or even getting rid of a card can lower your credit score is appalling.

Interestingly (or not), I have a credit card from Citi, and the interest on it has stayed the same.

I have 2 from BoA that haven't changed either and they're the second most stressed bank, it seems. Originally, neither were BoA but both banks were bought up by them from in the last 10 years.

SI

SI, yeah I know. It's fun to rant off after a long week.

So, you believe that tax rates should be 50 %-70%? Just because someone worked hard, created a business and grew it (creating jobs, tax revenue in a variety of forms)? (Note, I'm not talking about the small handful of corrupt Wall Streeters/bankers/CEOs) Are you nuts? Talk about killing an economy and the entrepreneurial spirit that makes America great.

Nearly half of Americans don't even pay any taxes (and even get money back from the government), and the 1% of the income earners pay about 40% of the income as it is.

The oil tax is a political ploy that shows that the left side has no idea on how the oil industry (US oil companies import most of their oil at the market value) works or even looks at the balance sheets/statements of oil companies (10% profit margins, which is pretty bad).

Also, a lot of states are looking/or are increasing gas taxes. Is that really the best idea?

I believe we've had this discussion before, but taxes and income taxes are not the same thing. And given the way FICA taxes have worked since Greenspn & Co. fixed SS, a portion of FICA taxes go into the general fund are are de facto income taxes.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2008ltr.pdf

Somewhere in that letter Buffett mentions that we're probably going to see inflation, and that yes something had to be done in the middle of the mess last year (so a point to me and Flasch if you trust Warren).

I would not be too excited about cutting the dividend at GE. I likes my dividends! They probably think it would be better to throw that what, 10 to 15 billion???, elsewhere... can't blame em really. I'm still long on them (at the unfortunate price of 11), although I did one of my controversial short term hedge gizmos on them at 12 (my finance buddy does not like the idea of having them long at 11 and short at 12).

So anyhoo, the end result is dumb luck will probably net me 30-40%, which (don't do this at home kids, I'm not a financial advisor just some gambling crazy kid)... I will probably sink back into a half boring old savings and half long GE (to average down that stake a bit). I'm kind of expecting the yield to get around 6-7% (yes that it is a price between 5 and 7), but I'm too chicken to try timing it so I'll probably move sometime this week. Given dumb luck shorting is responsible for so much money, I'm finding it hard to play long. Especially when I spend half the thread warning about the ultimate failure of capitalism being a possibility, lol. Need to start my guns and ammo hording investment strategy as a hedge.

i hear you on GE BUT I think that that dividend cut was being begged for if you look at the price of it. The dividend was at a freakish yield so preserving that capital now I dont think realy hurts them and the price drop yesterday had more to do with the environment as a whole IMO than the actual cut itself. Preserving that bond rating is the key and I do not think they'll have a hard time doing so. BTW dont even get me started on the rating agencies....they deserve to be dragged to the woodshed.

What about this idea. I can pay off my Capital One card in the next several months. I would keep that card (until they cancel it due to inactivity or going out of business) but get a new card, like at Wells Fargo or Chase?

I've been told that there's a sweet spot of having just enough cards. You don't want too many or too few apparently, regardless of balance.

I'm guess I'm not sure what your talking about. I'm talking about income taxes only (and the capital gains tax, a seperate tax, can be included as well).

I've never had much faith in the rating agencies, its been clear for years they don't do their homework (I dunno, actually determining credit-worthiness of companies, ahem ahem!). However, markets go gonzo for rating downgrades... so still have to pay attention to them.

I would have downrated a whole lot of credit ratings in 2007, or hell earlier than that if I was into the part time speculator biz before that.

But you say they don't pay taxes when they certainly do, and some of the taxes they pay go into the same fund as income taxes. There's not a single worker that pays no federal taxes. It's fine, if misleading, if you want to limit the discussion to income taxes, but don't say that people aren't paying taxes when they are.

The point of a progressive tax system is supposed to be that it hurts a hell of a lot less to pay taxes when you have more money, since you are much farther away from scraping by just for survival.

The problem with the whole silly tax fights we have is that one side whines like little bitches whenever a tax hike is mentioned at all, even if it is on an upper bracket they'll likely never reach, because they bought some line a long time ago that rich people not paying taxes are essential since they invest the money better than the government. The bad side of course is that government tends to spend the same, therefore the real result is that taxes on everyone end up huge, including those at the low and middle brackets that are closer to 'scraping by'. So the feedback loop is the fight against taxing the rich, often supported by middle to upper middle class, often leads to a higher overall tax burden on that middle class (in my opinion, especially in the era of tax dodging tricks for politicians and super wealthy). Ironically, what is in there best immediate interest is an increase in the highest tax brackets first, so that the scrapers have enough money to continue financing the consumerist machine that the super wealthy have built their fortune on.

On the other side you have the liberals who think it is a matter of fairness that the rich should be taxed more. Again, similarly ludicrious, there is nothing inherintly wrong from the pursuit of wealth... especially if done in an ethical and pro-growth manner such as creating businesses (and jobs). Taxing should not be a penalty for success, it should merely be collecting resources from the best location in the economy to collect those resources from, and from a net standard of living point of view that means a much higher proportion of income will come from the highest brackets. This makes sense in a direct, measure the impact on the efficiency of the country sort of way. Ironically, what would help the class of those at the bottom end and liberals who want a higher percentage of taxes to be paid by the rich, is a reduction in government spending (and specifically waste). By reducing the cost per citizen you dramatically effect the amount of taxes you really need to collect in other forms, such as taxes mostly hitting the poor like payroll, sales tax, and so on. If we had more efficient spending, the best thing for businesses and the super wealthy would actually be to have low taxes on the low brackets so that the overall standard of living rises, and they can sell the products and services to provide that standard. With more of the economy in the private sector, and growing, you have less need for government spending, so even if the tax burden is most heavilly allocated on the wealthy, the overall net tax required goes down and they would end up saving money in the long run (both paying less taxes overall, and higher profits from their businesses).

So we really need to see the parties switch sides, the liberals should go on a 'kill all government waste' streak, and the conservatives should back off the 'must protect the Bush tax cuts for the rich' and go on a 'kill off terrible government programs wasting money'. Poor all of that money into roads and unicorns to ride upon them and all will be happy!

This week may be a week of maximum panic and such could be another point to drop a little cost averaging in. I love how Cramer and Suze Orman are both harping on the if you need $ in the next 5 years get out of the market....a little late for one and no shit for two. The question is how much reserves allows one to still invest with their other monies. I have a nice safety net however I look at it sometimes in wonder and say, perhaps that should be bigger, hmmmmm.

and wow:

Reports: AIG to get up to $30B more in Fed aid - Yahoo! Finance

Im against disorderly unwinding but even Im starting to wonder where the light at the end of the tunnel is (which means in the contra-flasch theorem we should be getting close and this week will be a nice rally :) )

There's some crazy shit in the new AIG monies too:

1. Taxpayer being repaid in shares as opposed to the cash that was intended.
2. Theyre going to securitize life insurance policies. OK, well I guess those arent a bubble and people will start dying tomorrow in droves...maybe the safest securitization in the last 10 years.

Honestly watching business news the last 2 years has been better than any Hollywood movie Ive seen in a long time (BTW anyone see the First 48 the other night with the Memphis Massacre? Riveting).

Warren Buffet takes a pretty heavy-duty swipe at the large government handouts in the bailout bills..........

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2008ltr.pdf

Apparently Consumer Spending was higher than anticipated in January this year:

Consumer Spending Rose More Than Expected - NYTimes.com

So, that's one good news in a sea of bad.

So is it worth talking about how Congress has once again kept their annual pay raises, or did I miss the discussion?

Was that hidden in one of the spending bills or did they create a separate bill for that? Any chance it was posted for 5 days on the internet before a vote?

It's set up so they have to vote to get rid of it, which of course means they never vote on it.

Apparently a bill was introduced to freeze them, but it never made it out of committee.

Most of the search links I'm finding on this are third-party watchdog groups. CNN, etc don't seem to have picked up on it. A search on CNN.com turns up the same links, and if you force it to search just CNN it picks up mostly on "2009" and "congressional".

The way credit scores are done is broken, simply put. Anyone who's had to contest a line item from a credit agency or, worse, has been the victim of identity theft, knows this.

I hate to be cynical, but as far as I can tell your credit rating is based on the flawed twin principles of a) you're guilty of being a credit risk until you can prove your "innocence" through spending and paying bills and b) you need to spend like a good little consumer enough to earn a really good rating.


I'm OK with everyone from my tax bracket and up having an overall "income" tax burden (including state & local taxes, and FICA, but not things like capital gains) of 50%.

Now, seventy percent? Probably not. If government services were provided as I saw them in Denmark, Sweden and Norway then sure, but the government still wastes too much of my money for me to go that far.

Which is the other part of the bargain. I'll pay 50% if the government will try to waste less. But since I live a comfortable life and live in a comfortable tax bracket, I'm willing to take the first step.

Besides, as a citizen of Cook County, Illinois, the Federal Government wasting my money is the least of my worries. I'll get around to them eventually, but I've got other fish to fry.


In 10 years I've gone from a net income of 0 to a net income of, well, considerably more than 0. In all that time I can assure you that my ambition was never tempered by the thought that the government would keep taking more of my money as I succeeded in life.

Now, if the tax rate for people making over, say, $200,000/year was 75% or more, I think you might have a point. I think this is one of those talking points that really doesn't have a lot of bases in reality, aside from the fact that everyone likes to bitch about taxes, especially the "rich".


As JPhillips pointed out, this isn't necessarily true. In fact, there's no one in America, including illegals and tourists, that don't pay some sort of tax at some point.


This is another one of those talking points that has a considerably different meaning depending on whether it's presented in context of the amount of money the top 1% earn, or if it's presented without context (as above).

I mean really, when you're talking about the top 1% and the 50% or whatever of the population who make $50,000 or less, you're talking about an absolutely huge difference in scale. The top 1% are going to earn more from basic interest on their assets in a year than most of the other 50% are going to earn in their lifetimes. And that's being conservative.

Not to get too off base here, but this is why I always liked the way soccer stars' pay in Europe is listed in amounts per week. So Wayne Rooney earns something like $250,000 a week. And Wayne Rooney isn't even within spitting distance of the top 1%. The top 1% are earning millions, tens of millions, a week. I mean, they're earning more per hour than people are going to earn all year, or in a decade, or in a lifetime.

It's not fair or unfair that the top 1% are paying 40% of all taxes, it's basic mathematics.


Depends on your point of view. Four dollar/gallon gasoline looks like the amount that finally got Americans to start changing their habits. Given that in the future we're going to have to be more conservation-minded, getting gas back up to that level to spur innovative ideas to save gasoline and other energy might not be a bad idea.

But sure, we probably shouldn't do it in a recession. And the states that are proposing this are doing it as little more than a money grab.

I always love this whenever it comes up. It always underlines what a bunch of self-serving jackasses most of them are, as well as the fact that so few have actually held real jobs.

However, the best part is taking a look, each year, to see which ones, if any, introduced resolutions to try and freeze the raise.

One link I found claims:

But if they don't get a raise how will they ever attract the top talent?

:D

I see what you're doing here.

unfortunately it looks like the week has started like I thought it would. Im hoping that this creates a panicky bottom to the market so that some slow healing can begin and it could happen as over the next 6 weeks there is a lot of unveiling to be done for programs and such.

Ok to me things have gone from 'bad' to stupidly panic driven in the last month, I can definitely see an arguement that the market was overblown and needed to come down a bit - but its now down over 50% from its peak and obviously solid companies with safe income and turn over such as Microsoft and Nokia are tumbling like leaves ....

While their profits may well be affected by the downturn I can't believe that they'd fail to be profitable and indeed with their cash reserves I'd expect them to benefit from the situation by picking up smaller companies and weathering the storm better than most (leading to increased market share etc. come the recovery).

I throw GE into that bunch however the market is obviously pricing in a rating cut on them which is just insane although I have to admit that the books of all these companies in freefall look like a 3 year old got into the crayon box on it. I just cant imagine a ratings cut on them and continue to scale into GE but what was once a value play IMO is becoming speculative and I do not like that one bit. GE....speculative. HA!

Similar to the housing market...I would expect there will be overcorrection on the downside a bit as well.

Hopefully that's what is happening with (seemingly) undervaluation of solid companies and stocks.

Shh! Let's keep it a secret from lesser minds.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

On the gas tax, I think it's stupid to raise it now, in a recession as bad as this. However, a lot of states are looking to go with a "pay-as-you-go" system that charges you on how many miles you drive. A money grab that goes against the entire purpose of ending our gas/oil-addiction.

Flasch, haven't you been calling for a bottom for like 6 months now?

This ship is going lower for a while yet.

hoping.

I think my current strategy is to fund all my buys with shorts. But can the markets fall even further? hahahahaa... they'll give it the old college try apparently.

I finally cashed out my long standing grudge against GM. Shorted 100% (in May), covered for 10%. Looking at many stocks now cause this is one of my oldest shorts, and I basically could have picked any stock in the country and performed the same and been a winner.