AP reports that US helicopters flew into Syrian airspace and killed eight people today. Any more news?

by rdanThe NYT provides charts and article as well. (hat tip reader kuros) Layoffs have arrived in force, like a wrenching second act in the unfolding crisis. In just the last two weeks, the list of companies announcing their intention to cut workers has read like a Who’s Who of corporate America: Merck, Yahoo, General […]

OMB Watch carries: Notes from the Economy: UnderemploymentWhile the monthly number is an important component in summarizing the state of economy, but it’s an incomplete indicator. For example, at the state level in August, 20 states had unemployment rates greater than the national average of 6.1 percent, while 31 states had unemployment rates below the […]

Krugman believes people want someone who is “serious”: In a way, you can’t blame Mr. McCain for campaigning on trivia—after all, it’s worked in the past. Most notably, President Bush got within hanging-chads-and-butterfly-ballot range of the White House only because much of the news media, rather than focusing on the candidates’ policy proposals, focused on […]

Via Dr. Black, Alpha Bank and Trust of Alpharetta is now FDIC-owned. In related news, PNC is paying about $5.6 billion for midwest-based National City, which was a major player in subprime until everyone realized they weren’t any good at it. As noted previously, the claim was that monies given to “regional leaders” such as […]

In the “correlation may not be causation, but the trend is your friend” category. Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—at the request of McCain-supporting Flyer owner Ed Snider—dropped the puck in celebration of “hockey moms” at the Flyers home (and season) opener. That was October 11th. They lost. Followed by five more losses (three in […]

by cactus Infant Mortality – The Excuse is Addressed From a report put out by the CDC: Infant mortality rates were generally lowest (below 3.5 per 1,000) in selected Scandinavian (Sweden, Norway, and Finland) and East Asian (Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) countries. In 2004, 22 countries had infant mortality rates below 5.0. The United […]

rdan The NYT shows us this angle on the bailout: William Frey, the president of one of the funds, Greenwich Financial Services of Greenwich, Conn., said that he was acting to protect the firm’s investments. “Any investor in mortgage-backed securities has the right to insist that their contract be enforced,” he said. In letters sent […]

Failout Part 3 – The Summary or “Remember the Gift Horse & All That…”We’ve paid off the mortgages of people who would otherwise have gone into default triggering all sorts of chaos in the financial markets – from institutions performing loan portfolio write-downs to calling in credit default swaps, we’ve avoided that nasty mess and […]