Let the good times (almost) roll

[KrazyHorse]

US payroll -11k, unemployment down from 10.2% to 10%, hours worked up from 33 to 33.2

Not great on an absolute scale. Much better than expected, and much, much better than 6 months ago

Canada LFS employment +79k, unemployment down from 8.6% to 8.5% (QC unemployment 8.1%? Holy crap, I never thought I'd see the day QC had significantly better unemployment than the RoC)

[Asher]

QC funds its jobs with taxpayer money. Qu'elle Surprise.

[Japher]

If something is working it's not because of Obama...

I'm happy BAC is up despite share dilution, there will be dilution. Still, it'll be nice to see the next CEO of that company getting the compensation we all know he deserves [/sarcasm]. Though, really, I'm on the fence concerning executive compensation.

[KrazyHorse]

What's with the unnecessary apostrophe?

[Asher]

No idea, I don't speak French. **** you for knowing it was wrong.

That looked right, and vaguely Klingonish.

[KrazyHorse]

If something is working it's not because of Obama...

Errr....I never said it was.

I'm happy BAC is up despite share dilution, there will be dilution. Still, it'll be nice to see the next CEO of that company getting the compensation we all know he deserves [/sarcasm]. Though, really, I'm on the fence concerning executive compensation.

Why sarcasm? The next CEO of BAC will not bear any responsibility for its current position if they go external (which I'm assuming they will)

The very fact that BAC is scraping the coffers bare in order to repay TARP and get out from under "executive" compensation restrictions (the word is being thrown around very loosely, as most of the employees impacted are not executives) should tell you how important it is to the company to be able to pay people what it thinks they're worth.

Nobody wanted to take charge of a ****hole company where they weren't even allowed to hire talent because Congress was looking over its shoulder constantly. BAC was getting torn alive by headhunters.

[KrazyHorse]

They're making a decision on the transfer of tens of billions in order to be able to pay people a few hundreds of millions more. Anybody who doubts the value of the affected employees needs to explain why it's that important to BAC, and why its shares rose after the announcement.



Then they need to explain why it's a good idea to still have tens of billions in Citi while at the same time kicking Citi in the testicles.

[Jon Miller]

I thought this was going to mean yuo had finished your thesis.

One of my friends did his in 10 days.

JM

[Japher]

Oops, there goes the market. Mid day nose dive.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't follow the market. What's the point of trying to discern a pattern in brownian motion?

[Dinner]

Pelosi's idea about using repaid TARP funds to "create jobs" sounds interesting on the face of it but as soon as you see the details it starts looking retarded. It's basically just a slush fund not really targeted at creating any jobs what so ever. Now, if they used the estimated $200 billion for just infrastructure then I'd be ok with that. You could build up some nice light rail with that money, maybe a dam or two, or even some new canals however a slush fund doesn't sound very targeted to me.

I'd be really interested if Obama had the balls to make a New Civilian Conversavation Corp (CCC). FDR got around 4 million people jobs in the CCC at a time when the total US population was only a little north of 100 million. They did absolutely massive amounts of public works for the common good including improving the land of individual farmers by the tens of thousands in order to prevent dust bowl like conditions. To this day all the major national parks out west have a back down of infrastructure and trails made by the CCC plus all the young men who joined were fed, housed, and educated with real job skills to give them a chance for a decent life after the CCC. We could totally use that now and if the new CCC was the same size as the old one, proporational to population, then that would be ~12 million people off of unemployment.

[dannubis]

What's with the unnecessary apostrophe?

actually, he was expressing his desire that Quebec would surpirse everone...

[KrazyHorse]

Then he needs to match gender appropriately

[dannubis]

Quebec is feminin no?

[KrazyHorse]

Le Quebec