Important New - Dec. 13
By Daniel at 13 December, 2009, 12:22 pm
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“This is the first time local recruiters can remember having a wait list, or what the military refers to as “delayed entry,” for qualified applicants.
“We’re not given quotas anymore,” local Navy recruiter Oliver Ventura said. “Most of the jobs in the Navy are all full.”
All branches of the military met or exceeded their respective recruiting goals in the past year with the Army on top, making 108 percent of its target.
In total, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force brought in nearly 169,000 new recruits. The National Guard and Reserve forces added about 138,000.
The military is enticing right now because of the stability it offers in terms of pay, health care and other benefits that can include housing and education.”
“Within the Illinois Department of Corrections, cost-saving measures have ranged from big — the proposed sale to the federal government of the nearly empty Thomson Correctional Center in upstate Carroll County — to the small, the elimination of mandatory car washes for vehicles driven by parole agents.
Another byproduct of the state’s fiscal problems was Quinn’s announcement this fall that 1,000 nonviolent offenders will receive early release from prison. The move is expected to save the state $5 million annually.”
“Only 4 percent of sisters, priests and brothers are in orders that will have enough money to pay for projected retirement costs, according to a retirement-office study.
Retirement in Catholic orders is funded like Social Security, with income from working-age people subsidizing retirees. But the average U.S. Catholic sister is 71, and the average priest in an order is 66. By 2023, an estimated 79 percent of Catholic sisters will be aged 75 and older, according to a 2004 actuarial study performed for the religious-retirement office.
“The system worked for many years,” Bader said. “But as there are fewer and fewer wage-earning members, the ends don’t meet.” ”
““The per-gallon tax is the same whether gas is two dollars a gallon or four dollars a gallon,” Schirripa said. “When gas prices jumped and motorists cut their fuel consumption, that had a considerable negative impact on state transportation funding.”
The trend is reflected in MDOT’s budget. The nine-county Southwest Region based in Kalamazoo had a budget of $158.8 million for road and bridge projects in 2006. This year, it was $92.5 million — a drop of more than one-third in just three years. Its estimated budget for 2010 is $72.3 million.”
(Again, not meant as a political statement)
“giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.
Today is the second straight day that Obama’s Approval Index rating has fallen to a new low. Prior to the past two days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office”
“Goldman was one of 16 banks the U.S. government rescued last year after closing out losing trades that AIG had made with the financial firms.
The bank originated or bought protection from AIG on roughly $33 billon of the $80 billion of U.S. mortgage assets that AIG insured during the housing boom.
That was about twice as much as Societe Generale and Merrill Lynch, the firms with the largest exposure to AIG after Goldman, according to an analysis of ratings-firm reports and an internal AIG document, the Journal said.
In one deal Goldman acted as the middleman between AIG and banks, taking on as much as $14 billion in risk of the mortgage-related investments. But Goldman then insured that risk with a single trading partner, AIG, according to the Journal’s analysis and people familiar with the trades.
The trades, mostly booked from 2004 to 2006, yielded less than $50 million in profits for Goldman, the Journal said.
But the trades added risks onto AIG’s books and later came to haunt the insurer and Goldman. The trades also gave Goldman a unique window into AIG’s exposure to losses on securities linked to mortgages.
When the federal government bailed out the insurer, Goldman avoided losses on its trades with AIG covering a total of $22 billion in assets.”
“DUBAI (Reuters) - Heavy rain pounded Dubai on Sunday adding to the gloom of the emirate’s debt woes a day before the deadline of the $3.52 billion bond by state-owned developer Nakheel, with no word on how it will be handled.”
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Inflation.us The Final Solution for The Commercial Real Estate Collapse? CA Begins Razing Buildings (Video)
“What will happen to vacant commercial buildings as the economy begins to unwind? The Answer is right in front of my eyes. They will be destroyed.”
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