December 2009

  • AIG Employee... Resigns?

    By ecoscott on 12/30/09 8:26pm
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    I mean, it's still a lot of money...I mean, it's still a lot of money...Remember the financial crisis? Oh yeah, it’s not over. You know that friend or family member of yours who lost their job? You know those vacation plans you had to cancel because you need to save up a little more money? You know those Christmas presents you decided not to buy this year? You know that APR that went up on your credit card for now apparent reason? Yeah, everybody is going through tough times- including the executives at AIG. One of them just quit it’s so bad.

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  • Of Borders and Oil: Iran and Iraq

    By ecoscott on 12/20/09 3:52pm
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    OilOilWhen the American media talks about oil fields in the middle east, we usually talk about them in the way that assumes that they are relatively orderly and just sitting there in all their Jurassic glory waiting for someone to come along and dig, gulp, and burn the oil out of them. Maybe you picture the oil well drills that you’ve seen in Texas or somewhere like that, languidly pumping against a sunset backdrop, carefully churning out the highway blood of the American life. But you would be wrong. Not so much about the silhouette or the blood of American life part, but about the sitting and waiting patiently part. Nations fight over oil fields the way we in the U.S. fight over street corners to sell drugs, commercial time to sell products, or ad space in a crowded terminal to push wares. There is so much money in oil that it starts wars. Think about that.

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  • Gold and Silver Come Down from Recent Highs

    By dubayns on 12/20/09 2:27am
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    Gold and silver have taken some hits since they posted new yearly highs the first week of December.  For gold bugs, this dip in price is just another buying opportunity.  For those who bought in at the $1200+ mark, the recent $150 drop has been a test of their intestinal fortitude.  This most recent dip has served to shake many investors out of the market.  Some investors, who have been in for years, chose to pull the trigger and sell their precious metals at the high point.  Silver stayed below $20 per ounce, but it’s nearly impossible to find any of the white metal for sale for less than $20 per ounce.  Currently, it’s sitting above the $17 mark, and has been bouncing around this area for the past couple of weeks.

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  • Google Is Taking Over

    By ecoscott on 12/19/09 1:06pm
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    Google- As Ubiquitous as the Morning CoffeeGoogle- As Ubiquitous as the Morning CoffeeAs if we didn’t know already, Google is taking over. Google's mission? According to them, it’s “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Fair enough- but of course, they are a business as well, and a good one at that. They reported $5.94 billion in revenue for 2009 Q3, up 7% from 2008. So they are doing well. And making investments in everything from YouTube to AOL to ClearWire. Basically, they know what they are doing and are doing it aggressively.

    I’ve noticed 3 things lately that speak to another expansion that Google is going for, I would say in a big way:

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  • More Money for the Military

    By ecoscott on 12/19/09 12:43pm
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    It makes the politics go round...It makes the politics go round...It’s been a while since I did one of my politics is money posts, and just today a headline caught my eye that makes me double-down on that certainty- Reuters is reporting that the senate has just approved more than $600 billion in new military spending. So the message is- if you want more than half a trillion dollars for the military, no problem, we’ll get that through without a problem. If you want something like that for health care, prepare for a drawn out debate and question marks even after that. Frustrating.

    The bill also carries provisions to extend jobless aid and sends money to supplement Medicare payments and rates for another 2 months, but the thrust of it is to fund military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a pretty simple jump to say, “Where are our priorities?”

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