65% fear their small business will fail

65% fear their business will fail

 

October 28th, 2009, 6:00 am by Jan Norman, small-business columnist

 

Almost two out of every three small-business owners are concerned their companies will fail by 2011, according to an online survey

http://jan.freedomblogging.com/2009/10/28/65-fear-their-business-will-fail/24287/

Feeling the Pinch? The Democratic-Republican Party and Bankruptcy Laws

Published on Friday, March 16, 2001

Bankruptcy laws were made much tougher – for you and I, but not corporations and Wall St. swindlers – a few years ago by a combination of Republicans and corporate fascist Democrats like Harry Reid.  Wake up.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0316-03.htm

Going Backwards

36 ‘Democratic’ Senators Vote For Credit Card/Banking Industry’s Bankruptcy ‘Reform’

…and they wonder why so many Democrats voted for Ralph Nader.

GW Bush and the credit card/banking industry won a huge victory last night as 36 ‘Democrats’ joined their Republican ‘colleagues’ and voted to pass S-420 – the Bankruptcy bill.

“Among Senate Democrats who may vote for the bankruptcy bill are Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), whose state is home to a Citigroup Inc. credit card operation in Sioux Falls that employs several thousand people. Daschle has received $45,000 in political contributions from Citigroup in the last six years.” — Washington Post 3/11/01

The Sell Outs:

Daniel Akaka (Hawaii) senator@akaka.senate.gov

Max Baucus (Montana) http://www.senate.gov/~baucus/EmailMax.htm

Evan Bayh (Indiana) http://bayh.senate.gov/webmail.html

Joe Biden (Delaware) senator@biden.senate.gov

Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico) senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

John Breaux (Louisiana) senator@breaux.senate.gov

Robert Byrd (West Virginia) senator_byrd@byrd.senate.gov

Maria Cantwell (Washington) http://cantwell.senate.gov/mailform.html

Jean Carnahan (Missouri) senator_carnahan@carnahan.senate.gov

Thomas Carper (Delaware) http://carper.senate.gov/

Max Cleland (Georgia) http://www.senate.gov/~cleland/webform.html

Hillary Clinton (New York) senator@clinton.senate.gov

Kent Conrad (North Dakota) senator@conrad.senate.gov

Tom Daschle (Sorth Dakota) http://daschle.senate.gov/webform.htm

Byron Dorgan (North Dakota) senator@dorgan.senate.gov

John Edwards (North Carolina) http://www.senate.gov/~edwards/contact.html

Dianne Feinstein (California) senator@feinstein.senate.gov

Bob Graham (Florida) bob_graham@graham.senate.gov

Fritz Hollings (South Carolina) http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/webform.html

Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) http://www.senate.gov/~inouye/webform.html

Tim Johnson (South Dakota) tim@johnson.senate.gov

Herb Kohl (Wisconsin) senator_kohl@kohl.senate.gov

Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) http://landrieu.senate.gov/webform.html

Patrick Leahy (Vermont) senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Carl Levin (Michigan) senator@levin.senate.gov

Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) senator_lieberman@lieberman.senate.gov

Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas) blanche_lincoln@lincoln.senate.gov

Barbara Mikulski (Maryland) senator@mikulski.senate.gov

Zell Miller (Georgia) http://miller.senate.gov/email.htm

Patty Murray (Washington) senator_murray@murray.senate.gov

Ben Nelson (Nebraska) http://www.senate.gov/senators/ben_nelson.html

Harry Reid (Nevada) senator_reid@reid.senate.gov

Chuck Schumer (New York) senator@schumer.senate.gov

Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) senator@stabenow.senate.gov

Robert Torricelli (New Jersey) senator_torricelli@torricelli.senate.gov

Ron Wyden (Oregon) http://wyden.senate.gov/mail.htm

Democrats Who Voted No:

Jon Corzine, N.J.; Mark Dayton, Minn.; Chris Dodd, Conn.; Dick Durbin, Ill.; Russ Feingold, Wis.; Tom Harkin, Iowa; Ted Kennedy, Mass.; John Kerry, Mass.; Bill Nelson, Fla.; Jack Reed, R.I.; John Rockefeller, W.Va.; Paul Sarbanes, Md.; Paul Wellstone, Minn.

Not Voting:

Barbara Boxer (California)

China: Overcapacity – Commodity Stockpiling

http://urlet.com/schedule.anything

http://www.rgemonitor.com/emergingmarkets-monitor/257856/chinas_september_data_suggest_that_the_long-term_overcapacity_problem_is_only_intensifying

Bank failures hit 106 on year

By Greg Morcroft, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Seven more banks failed Friday, pushing the 2009 total to 106 and marking the first year since 1992 that at least 100 have gone under

Experts suggest we could be no more than 10% of the way through this cycle of bank collapses, which is sure to be the worst run of closures since the Great Depression.

http://urlet.com/len.man

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-failures-hit-100-for-year-2009-10-23

Matt Taibbi on Wall Street Criminals

Like all the great merchants of the bubble economy, Bear and Lehman were leveraged to the hilt and vulnerable to collapse. Many of the methods that outsiders used to knock them over were mostly legal: Credit markers were pulled, rumors were spread through the media, and legitimate short-sellers pressured the stock price down. But when Bear and Lehman made their final leap off the cliff of history, both undeniably got a push — especially in the form of a flat-out counterfeiting scheme called naked short-selling.

The new president for whom we all had such high hopes went and hired Michael Froman, a Citigroup executive who accepted a $2.2 million bonus after he joined the White House, to serve on his economic transition team — at the same time the government was giving Citigroup a massive bailout. Then, after promising to curb the influence of lobbyists, Obama hired a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, as chief of staff at the Treasury. He hired another Goldmanite, Gary Gensler, to police the commodities markets. He handed control of the Treasury and Federal Reserve over to Geithner and Bernanke, a pair of stooges who spent their whole careers being bellhops for New York bankers. And on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, when he finally came to Wall Street to promote “serious financial reform,” his plan proved to be so completely absent of balls that the share prices of the major banks soared at the news.

http://urlet.com/go.caught

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30481512/wall_streets_naked_swindle

Orange County Register owner files for bankruptcy

Orange County Register owner files for bankruptcy

Tue Sep 1, 2009 4:48pm EDT

By Phil Wahba and Tom Hals

NEW YORK/WILMINGTON, Del., Sept 1 (Reuters) – The publisher of the Orange County Register and 29 other dailies filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, the latest newspaper company to seek court protection due to the recession and online competition.

Freedom Communications Holdings Inc, which owns a total 90 newspapers and eight television stations, said it reached an agreement with the lenders of the majority of its roughly $1 billion debt to restructure the company.

 http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSN0149941020090901

AND THEN WHAT? Prolonged Aid to Unemployed Is Running Out

ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: August 1, 2009

Over the coming months, as many as 1.5 million jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits, ending what for some has been a last bulwark against foreclosures and destitution.

Because of emergency extensions already enacted by Congress, laid-off workers in nearly half the states can collect benefits for up to 79 weeks, the longest period since the unemployment insurance program was created in the 1930s. But unemployment in this recession has proved to be especially tenacious, and a wave of job-seekers is using up even this prolonged aid.

http://urlet.com/strategies.fair

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02unemploy.html?hp

Bankruptcies low in states that don’t seize wages

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

Sunday, July 5, 2009

(07-05) 21:02 PDT (AP) –

States that allow debt collectors to seize consumers’ wages have sharply higher bankruptcy rates than neighboring states that prohibit or strictly limit the practice, an Associated Press analysis has found.

While bankruptcy rates vary for many reasons, the five states that prohibit or strongly limit wage seizures — North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Florida and Texas — all have drastically lower rates than their neighbors, with particularly striking differences along borders, where economic conditions are similar but bankruptcy rates are not.

http://urlet.com/em.affordable

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/05/financial/f100457D41.DTL&feed=rss.business

US and UK on brink of debt disaster

20 Jan 2009, 0419 hrs
 
 
 
LONDON: The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history. 
While both governments experiment with quantitative easing, bad banks to absorb non-performing loans, and state guarantees to restart bank lending, the only real way out is some combination of widespread corporate default, debt write-downs and inflation to reduce the burden of debt to more manageable levels. Everything else is window-dressing.
 
The proximate trigger of the debt crisis was the deterioration in lending standards and rise in default rates on subprime mortgage loans. But the widening divergence revealed in the charts suggests a crisis had become inevitable sooner or later. If not subprime lending, there would have been some other trigger.

The charts strongly suggest the necessary condition for resolving the debt crisis is a reduction in the outstanding volume of debt, an increase in nominal GDP, or some combination of the two, to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio to a more sustainable level.

From this perspective, it is clear many of the existing policies being pursued in the United States and the United Kingdom will not resolve the crisis because they do not lower the debt ratio.

In particular, having governments buy distressed assets from the banks, or provide loan guarantees, is not an effective solution. It does not reduce the volume of debt, or force recognition of losses. It merely re-denominates private sector obligations to be met by households and firms as public ones to be met by the taxpayer.

BANKRUPTCY OR INFLATION

The solution must be some combination of policies to reduce the level of debt or raise nominal GDP. The simplest way to reduce debt is through bankruptcy, in which some or all of debts are deemed unrecoverable and are simply extinguished, ceasing to exist.

Bankruptcy would ensure the cost of resolving the debt crisis falls where it belongs. Investor portfolios and pension funds would take a severe but one-time hit. Healthy businesses would survive, minus the encumbrance of debt.

http://urlet.com/bingo.angels

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/rssarticleshow/msid-4004567,flstry-1.cms

Its Time to Dump Your Dollars – If You Still Have Cents

Crude Oil Caps Biggest Monthly Gain Since 1999 on Dollar Drop

By Mark Shenk

May 29 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose, capping its biggest monthly gain in a decade, as the dollar weakened against the euro, bolstering the appeal of commodities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=af0H16dCeM_A&refer=home