15 April 2008
News and Comments - 04/15/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
8 Comments so far...
Jesse Says:
15 April 2008 at 12:30 am.
China has been caught using provocateurs to stage violence and blame it on Tibetan protesters after an image of the man who attacked a wheelchair-bound Olympic torch bearer in Paris was uncovered showing him marching alongside friends carrying the red flag of Communist China.
The exposé is just the latest embarrassment for the Chinese government, who have been blamed for infiltrating protests and turning them violent in order to demonize Tibetans on several occasions already.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/041408_staged_attack.htm
Cameron Says:
15 April 2008 at 6:25 am.
Negative attitude toward SS just media hype? Also their figures on retirement money needed don’t account for interest.
Generation X glum on retirement prospects: survey
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa Mon Apr 14, 8:03 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Baby boomers say they are worried about achieving a comfortable retirement, but a new study suggests Generation X is even more pessimistic.
More than two-thirds of Americans aged 27 to 42 don’t think they will ever be able to stop working, according to a survey published jointly on Monday by Scottrade and BetterInvesting.
In contrast, 64 percent of respondents aged 55 to 64 said they could retire and not worry, even though this group is much closer to retirement age.
“The Gen X group is the most anxious about their finances,” said Chris Moloney, chief marketing officer at Scottrade.
Of the 1,000 respondents 18 and older polled in early January, 40 percent said they had saved less than $25,000 for retirement. For perspective, someone who envisions 20 years of retirement on about $50,000 a year would need to have $1 million stashed away.
Generation Xers are well aware of this need, the survey found. In fact, 37 percent said they would like to have between $1 million to $5 million saved for retirement — even if their ability to save this money leaves such sums in the realm of wishful thinking. Twenty-one percent said they have yet to begin saving for retirement.
“Gen X is in the middle of a ‘retirement perfect storm’ of very high expectations, low retirement savings and massive concern about the future of Social Security,” Moloney added.
This concern is largely the result of a barrage of negative media coverage about the entitlement system as a demographic time-bomb that will become more difficult to fund as older folks begin to outnumber the young.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080414/ts_nm/usa_economy_retirement_dc
Mac Says:
15 April 2008 at 10:23 am.
Cameron, I’ve been kind of concerned about social security plus my retirement fund not doing the job because the value of the dollar is bad. I don’t know what to do about it. I may end up working like this article says. Not a happy thought.
Matt Says:
15 April 2008 at 10:35 am.
Looks like Joy when she said at the beginning of March that it was going to be a bad month.
Wholesale prices soar in March
WASHINGTON - Inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been expected as the costs of energy and food both climbed rapidly.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that wholesale prices rose by 1.1 percent last month, the largest increase since a 2.6 percent rise last November, which had been the biggest one-month jump in 33 years. Analysts had been expecting a much more moderate 0.4 percent rise in wholesale prices for the month.
Cameron Says:
15 April 2008 at 10:55 am.
Oil Pushes to New High Above $113
Tuesday April 15, 10:54 am ET
By George Jahn, Associated Press Writer
Oil Climbs Above $113 a Barrel for First Time on Dollar and Supply Concerns
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Oil prices rose to new heights Tuesday, surging to almost $114 a barrel after the U.S. dollar fell and worries mounted about the global oil supply.
A report from the International Energy Agency said Russian oil production dropped this year for the first time in a decade. Crude oil shipments along one U.S. pipeline were said to be moving below capacity. And Italy’s ENI reported a 5,000 barrel per day reduction in production at one of its facilities in Nigeria.
Cameron Says:
15 April 2008 at 11:00 am.
A couple of my cousins are in this boat and are walking away from their mortgages. It wrenches the ole heart strings.
U.S. Foreclosures Jump 57% as Homeowners Walk Away (Update3)
April 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners lost their homes to lenders.
More than 234,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, or one in every 538 U.S. households, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said today in a statement. Nevada, California and Florida had the highest foreclosure rates. Filings rose 5 percent from February.
About $460 billion of adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc. Auction notices rose 32 percent from a year ago, a sign that more defaulting homeowners are “simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender” rather than letting the home be auctioned, RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said in the statement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aN3CfG7wYMuI&refer=home
Matt Says:
15 April 2008 at 2:47 pm.
This writer is skeptical about Hillary’s sincerity the same as most of us.
Guns, God and Gotchas
The current fuss is an example. She turned Obama’s statement into an affront to gun lovers everywhere, which it just might be. But since when is Hillary Clinton a gun lover, a hunter or even a weekend skeet shooter? She is apparently none of the above — at least she will not say when she last fired a gun. The truth, if a guess is allowed, is that she does not give a damn about guns and hunting, and when she brings up her “churchgoing family” and “Our Town” values, they are expressions of treacly nostalgia and not the life of incredible affluence and situational morality she now enjoys. To paraphrase Dorothy, Clinton left Kansas a long time ago.
Terrie Soberg Says:
15 April 2008 at 3:14 pm.
He not only is skeptical of Hillary’s sincerity, but he also believes that Obama misspoke.
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