But D.C has the federal government.. we are special!

We ARE special, like the kids on the short bus.

when a pig jumps into a pond..

might make a Ripple

hey, Robert MacNamara was no Alexander Hague.

Sunday Buzz | Landmark Smith Tower mostly vacant | Seattle Times Newspaper

here's more.

An understatement.

Some advertisements pitching reverse mortgages mislead consumers: GAO study
Some reverse-mortgage ads stretch the truth - MarketWatch

AlertEmailPrintShare By Gail Liberman and Alan Lavine

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (MarketWatch) -- Are you in the market for a reverse mortgage to tap into your home's equity for some much-needed cash? Don't believe everything you read or hear about these loans. The U.S. Government Accountability Office uncovered a number of misleading reverse-mortgage claims in a study in June. The GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that conducts investigative work for Congress.

My apologies to the board and to you CR.

You'd never know it sitting on the Beltway every morning plenty of people texting and putting on their pantyhose.

At the same time? They must be talented.

Earthquake shelters?

//deciding what to do with land cleared for towers that may not rise for another decade - if at all.//

see thru buildings for a see thru economy.

But they need that office space for all the new employees !

"(Source: United Press International)trackingThree of every four major U.S. healthcare firms have at least one former Washington insider on their lobbying payroll, a Washington Post analysis indicates.

Nearly half of the insiders-turned-lobbyists worked for the key committees and lawmakers debating whether to include a public insurance option -- opposed by major industry groups -- in a proposed overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, the analysis released Monday indicated.

The presence of the former wheelers and dealers is part of the healthcare industry's record-breaking effort, tabbed at more than $1.4 million a day, on lobbying the overhaul, disclosure records indicated. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million, the Post reported.

"For people like me who are on the outside and used to be on the inside, this is great, because there is a level of trust in these relationships, and I know the policy rationale that is required," said Richard Tarplin, an ex-employee of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Senate now representing the American Medical Association.

ad naseum repeat on how US economy is looking into 2011
- Consumer spending going down
- CRE getting crushed
- RRE still tanking
- Continuing Unemployment with U6 likely at 20%
- Biden admits 'we misread the economy' so Obamanomics is not working

Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd. (NYSE Amex: CPD), announced today that it is in the process of instituting an indefinite reduction in its workforce of approximately 350 employees in order to align its expenses

You haven't spent enough time in mfg hell. That euphemism is rather common unfortunately.

I was surprised too

//What puzzles me is that this story was filed from Detroit. I didn't realize people still worked there.//

What is news is that there are still people to lay off in Detroit ...

nah.. the shenanningans of GS are more fun.. have they considered changing their name to something else?

//on assignment covering the GM bankruptcy I think //

White House and Hospitals Are Reported to Be Near Deal
The Obama administration and major hospital associations on Monday evening were nearing a deal for about $150 billion in cost savings to help pay for an overhaul of the nation’s health care system, with an announcement expected at the White House as early as Wednesday, officials said.

Honestly, I have no freaking idea how this cost savings works. Somehow the hospitals have $150B somewhere in wasteful spending that they're going to cut. Then they're going to transfer those savings into treating the uninsured?

How does costs savings work with massive overcapacity?

UK’s next spy chief in Facebook storm
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/uks-next-spy-chief-in-facebook-storm-2009076/

Jul. 6, 2009 (2:44 pm) By: Andy Carvell

The future head of Britain’s MI6 security service has found himself at the center of an embarrassing media storm after a UK newspaper unearthed pictures of him and personal details on his wife’s Facebook profile. Sir John Sawers, currently the British ambassador to the UN and selected to become the new head of the secret intelligence service MI6, was pictured in the Mail on Sunday newspaper in a variety of family photos. His wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, also disclosed information about their family and children on her Facebook profile, which was not privacy-restricted and could be read by any of the social network’s 200 million users.

Ghost,

The Chinese didn't want to buy our increasingly worthless paper so we told them we'd get them oil.
This was, of course, right when the Chimp and DeadEye Dick took over...

Anybody know where I can get some 6mil foil?

So CR is this the start or finish?

Me thinks the CRE market will be painfull 'till late 2010 or early 2011.

Gosh it is amazing how this is a repeat of the prior two recessions...

Through prayer and wishful thinking.

//How does costs savings work with massive overcapacity?//

Simple - you survive & they [your less efficient competition] fail. Think micro not macro and it all makes sense.

The guillotines for HR people must be kept dull.

//At the old MCI, when they decided to close an office, they announced that they were going to "co-locate" with another office thereby cutting overhead.//

Lucifer - if teh FDA said yes to all drugs in the pipeline we would have full employment and CRE would get back to normal. The downside however might be some version of thalidomide ( 404 Not Found but heh what the hech...

FDA Seizes Generic Drugs Produced by Caraco Pharmaceutical Labs

Yep, I'm right. Caraco's just chock full of good stuff for your body./snark

Honestly, I have no freaking idea how this cost savings works. Somehow the hospitals have $150B somewhere in wasteful spending that they're going to cut. Then they're going to transfer those savings into treating the uninsured?

I think that they are just going to shift the COST of indigent care to the government insurance, turning it into revenue. Presto..instant cost savings.

if teh FDA said yes to all drugs in the pipeline we would have full employment and CRE would get back to normal. The downside however might be some version of thalidomide

21st Century hole-digging.

Of course, we have no more thalidomide babies, either.

Actually not worse than some of the girls I dated.

indefinite reduction is definitely new. I'm sure someone paid a McKenzie consultant a lot to come up with that one.

Hah! I dated a McKenzie alum for a little while, and you could not be more correct....she was pretty nice, but was ready to move in way too fast...

I think that they are just going to shift the COST of indigent care to the government insurance, turning it into revenue.

That's the way that I read it. It's not like a hospital can deploy billions in wasteful diagnostics (e.g. PET/MRI) into indigent care. Unfortunately, many of the wonks that I speak to think that health care is perfectly fungible.

Sorry you miss it. Simply put when you buy electricity when there is coal involved. Coal is the product in the form of electricity. Those boxes in the store have what inside? Farm products. The paper trail may not be direct but it does go to the Farmer as well as the rest of the chain. Yes it is very politically motivated.

Just read the China Daily story re Iraq oil and Chinese development of oilfields.

The only contract struck in the first round was Chinese/BP.

Guess, the protestors got what they wanted.

No blood for oil.

Apparently just blood for shits and giggles.

White House and Hospitals Are Reported to Be Near Deal

~~~~~

The American people get sold out again ...

Corporate Healthcare, the Banksters and the MIC got their money's worth ... America be damned ...

mckinley:

It's a good thing for you that your blood pressure meds will be covered by the government, beneficent as it is.

Chill. It's all good.

Talking about management-speak.. a blast from the recent past

Glaxo chief declares R&D upheaval a success
Glaxo chief declares R&D upheaval a success - FierceBiotech

June 22, 2009 — 10:58am ET | By John Carroll

Looking back to when he got the top job at GlaxoSmithKline a little more than a year ago, Andrew Witty says that morale was terrible in the pharma giant's troubled, unproductive R&D department. High turnover left staffers angry as GSK recalibrated its approach to drug discovery and development. But it's all just fine now, says the CEO. "Many of the people we had in the discovery organization left in the period of change, either through their own volition or because they were not up to operating in the kind of way I have described,"Witty told a conference late last week. "Today, a year or so later, I'm shocked at how fast this has bedded down.

Sorry you miss it. Simply put when you buy electricity when there is coal involved. Coal is the product in the form of electricity. Those boxes in the store have what inside? Farm products. The paper trail may not be direct but it does go to the Farmer as well as the rest of the chain. Yes it is very politically motivated.

No YOU miss it - I LIVED it. I get it.

A loaf of bread sells for like $2 in a store. How much wheat is in it? Like 5 cents worth. Maybe 10 cents if a good year price wise. So you hand out food stamps to folks and they buy bread... $1.90 goes to somebody and only a dime goes to the farmer. And that isn't a dime of profit it is a dime of revenue... it is probably a half penny to a tenth penny profit.

Nothing - exactly nothing.

Meanwhile Cargill, ADM, etc. makes a bunch [flour]... General Mills, Pillsbury make a bunch [the bread]... truckers make some... warehouses make some, retailers make some... farmers make squat.

A very similar situation with ethanol, sweeteners, meat products, etc.

Understand the value stream & you understand where the political pull is. Food stamps put nothing in the farmers pocket... what they do is get mostly urban congressmen to support a bill [the farm bill] that otherwise has nothing in it for them. So farm state congressmen & lobbyists try like crazy to link the farm bill to something big city congressmen will support. Since the sixties food stamps have been the 'vehicle'.

Where do farmers benefit from the farm bill? (1) Price supports & deficiency payments - mostly grains like wheat, corn & soybeans and (2) import quotas - sugar being the biggest cotton also I believe but I was never involved with that product.

Just got back from reading the CA downgrade thread.

I sincerely wish that several of you - ac and albert especially - would be quiet and maybe use some special CR code when you figure out how they can game the friggin' system.

I doubt that they understand what they're doing with most of the planning, and then you folks shoot off your mouths and they read it and dope slap themselves, saying "hey, that's an idea!"

Final 20 Billion.. sure

GM to Get Final $20 Billlion From US This Year
GM to Get Final $20 Billlion From US This Year - Automotive * US * News * Story - CNBC.com

By: Reuters | 06 Jul 2009 | 02:28 PM ET

General Motors has been given about a third of the bankruptcy financing promised by the U.S. Treasury and will get the remaining $20 billion over the remainder of the year, a senior U.S. official said Monday.

A good one..

Dilbert comic strip for 07/06/2009 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

actually no we haven't. If we made them lose face in a major way they would dump their UST and screw the consequences. And we would be wondering what we did.

Once they are confident they can either live without our consumers OR can steam roller their own if they can't function w/out our consumers - 100% sure from the CCP POV - then they blow up USTs & the dollar. But not until they know how they are going to deal with the 200 million or so people directly & indirectly coupled to the export mfg sector. Until that question is solved they will be forced to wipe it off their face over and over and keep buying USD assets.

BTW - my guess is they have already gone past the breaking point internally [behind the mask]. They are probably now quite busy getting things in place to tell the US to %#@&#! off in Mandarin or some other dialect most of us won't understand. It will not be pleasant for those losing their jobs in the export sector.

And we wonder why they save.

At Cisco back in 2001 we didn't have layoffs, we had "involuntary normal attrition". It seemed very similar to layoffs to the employees who were involuntarily attrited.

That's what they got for bringing over the HR VP from GE. One of the major reasons the corporate culture took a significant turn for the worse.

Report from the landlorddome:

A proprietary newsletter that I subscribe to has essentially declared devaluation wars among countries.

It's the Weber Global Opportunities Report, for those interested.

I'm getting out of stocks and into hard assets, starting tomorrow.

sm_ll out.

CR,

have you read the WSJ article about the cause of 6 Illinois bank blowup?

The avg glass bottle cost is .60 for a bottle of wine. Sheesh that wine is coming from a BK winery and the distributor is blowing it out to get it out of his warehouse.

The commodities market MAYBE was once a blessing for producers in this country. Now it is an extra tax for all of us with direct deposit into a very small percentage of useless middlemen.

Please let China foreclose on the White House and we can move on. The past two years have worn me out. Let the paradigm shift occur. NPR told me the broken economy was healing today. I shrugged and thought about the heart attack the economy was going to experience when the medical bills arrived.

A hybrid between debt and equity.. what could go wrong?

That's what they got for bringing over the HR VP from GE. One of the major reasons the corporate culture took a significant turn for the worse.

Now you can learn all of those distasteful business practices from the comfort of your own home. Introducing the Jack Welch Online MBA!!!

The Jack Welch MBA Coming to Web - WSJ.com

Learn how to:
- Cut the bottom 10%, promote the top 10%, and repress the remaining 80% of your workforce
- Use 6-sigma to generate lots of meetings and meaningless "improvements"
- Outsouce to China
- Screw your vendors
- Become profitable through creative accounting!!!

Thanks for pasting the link, I am on my iPhone.

Ver 3.0 renders this an unacceptable excuse.

Have you seen the 300$ crunchpad prototypes?

Wall Street brokerage firms bought the securities from individual banks and packaged them into collateralized-debt obligations. The firms then sold slices of the CDOs to investors, marketing them as lucrative but low risk. Many of the buyers were small and regional banks.

So that is how you extend the FDIC safety net into investment banking...

Basel Too:

You broke it.

The quacks are it.. again

Harvard Business Review Says Steve Jobs Is a Horrible Manager
Harvard Business Review Says Steve Jobs Is a Horrible Manager - Steve jobs management - Gizmodo

By Jason Chen, 6:40 PM on Mon Jul 6 2009

cutting capital costs by up to half

By doubling risk.

Basel Too

22 minutes between posts on Hoocodanode - a modern era record.