Fox news by way of memeorandum

A Maryland company is working on a steam-powered robot which can burn biomass from the field of battle (wood, furniture, grass, dead bodies) to keep it going. Or as the news site says:

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

To put it better, its' name is -- Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (E.A.T.R.).

I really hope this is an Onion News story.

Here are some videos from the Consumer Reports sit down session with the good doctor. The first three sessions are up in video form with the other parts to follow in the next few days.

Part 1) It's not all Bad News

Part 2) On surviving the next year

Part 3) On falling prices and deflation

The videos run between 2 1/2 to 3 min each.

(hat tip The Consumerist)

AIG didn't comply and Andrew Cuomo issued subpoenas, and now we wait for the next round in this game.

Via The Consumerist and The Business Review

Via the SiliconValleyWatcher and yes I used their article title.
(by way of BoingBoing and The Consumerist)

The article is from October 16th 2008, so the numbers now may actually be worse than back then.

It gives a break down of the various types of derivatives and their USD value and comes up with a total USD value of outstanding derivatives ...

...the amount of outstanding derivatives worldwide as of December 2007 crossed USD 1.144 Quadrillion, ie, USD 1,144 Trillion.

or to put it another way

Andrew Cuomo, NY Attorney General, has written to AIG and given them till 4pm TODAY to turn over names of people getting the money (i.e.receiving bonuses) in the Financial Products subdivision. If they don't, well their offices can expect a visit from his people with the legal authority to make them talk.

Copy of the letter Here

Time/CNN website is having a contest to see who, in their opinion, is most responsible for our current economic situation -- Here

Current standings -- Here

It seems NY AG Andrew Como has written a letter to the head of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep, Barney Frank (D-Mass) about his concern that Merril Lynch changed their bonus payment schedule so that the bailout package would foot the bill.

From The Boston Globe / boston.com

It seems that millions of credit card accounts have been hit with a "mysterious credit card charges" of $.25 from a "Adele Services" in Melville, N.Y. It doesn't seem to exist as far as anyone can tell, yet the charges went through. You can and should contest this charge if you find it in your CC bill, don't let it slide, as the thieves may want to see if possible targets of a later, larger fraud are monitoring their account.

There is the possibility that it is just a massive attempt to get a lot of small amounts of money from many people into one large amount for one person or as ( to quote the article ):

The site truecostofcredit.com can give you a general idea of how much it cost merchants when you use your debit/credit card to buy something.

Fun, when you consider that consumer borrowing dropped by approx., $8 billion in the month of november. (Bloomberg.com)

Gee, I wonder if they'll raise their rates to compensate from the loss of fees of people not being able to afford to borrow against their credit cards?

(h/t The Consumerist)

From the LA Times --- (this time by way of the Consumerist, now owned by Consumer Reports)

From the LA Times ---- (by way of Hot Air)

It seems that the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), designed and passed to protect children from unsafe toys and clothing, may also have the unintended result of seriously reducing or even closing some thrift stores and children retailers. To quote the Times' article:

Given the season and the Correntes' relentless investigation/snark of the Shitstorm - From Portifolio.com
An article which points out that maybe Mr. Potter wasn't quite the bad guy after all, or as they put it:

But knowing what we know now, about the dangers of subprime mortgages and the virtues of disciplined bankers, perhaps it's time to reconsider the financial—if not the sentimental—lesson of It's a Wonderful Life. In short: Was George Bailey a reckless subprime lender? Was Henry Potter a sober, misunderstood businessman?

Great American Insurance Co. is trying to weasel out of paying the heirs/families of three victims of a 2007 Houston office building fire by claiming they didn't die directly because of the fire. Rather, they're claiming that the people died because of "polluted air" (created by the fire) and the ONE million dollar policy on the building doesn't cover "death by pollution".

Or as the article in Chron.com puts it:

In this earlier post I linked to the bailout being larger than several other historical projects combined (here) , well it seems that It's worse than that Jim.
According to this article here at The Politico (remember information is everywhere) doing some number crunching, James Bianco - Bianco Research President came up with:

It appears that adding in the Citibank to the bailout means that it now cost more than

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

(and I'll even include Fox on this one folks.) Seriously I saw a commercial on NBC today from MSNBC for the Barack Obama DVD featuring 4 hours of material, and to quote the site:

"NBC News presents “Yes We Can!” the story of Barack Obama. This commemorative DVD takes you through the story of Barack Obama's life - his campaign to win his party's nomination, his campaign for the presidency, and finally his victorious history-making win. DVD extras include footage of the full inspiring speeches which were the most pivotal and memorable ones of his 2-year campaign. "

They will only ship it domestically and you can't use PayPal to buy it.

(Via The Consumerist by way of Bloomberg and WSJ

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke helped waive the 30-day waiting period, so that Amex could start to start loot/access the TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program). Congress passed TARP to buy up troubled mortgage assets , which the Fed no longer wants to do now. So it appears that Bernanke wants to use it to help businesses that are facing problems from bad car loans, regular loans and credit card debt instead.

Oh, and Capital One is already in line to get a paltry $3.5 billion from the fund. I'm so glad home owners got some mortgage/debt relief from this bill.

History note from Bloomberg:

Well it seems Citigroup has decided that even with the help of F.D.I.C. that it just did not want to take on even part of the bad loans/debt Wachovia had from its' earlier mergers. According to the NYTimes , Wells Fargo gets to have it all and create a $1.42 Trillion company stretching coast to coast.
Citigroup wants to sue Wells Fargo for $60 Billion for interfering, but may not be able to because:

even the sports blogs are weighing in on some of the inanities of the "emergency relief in this bill, (found while waiting for the Phillies game to start)- NASCAR . (via Yahoo )
And the House bill started out in 10/2007 as a bill from Rep Rangle (NY) as H.R.3997 - "An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax relief and protections for military personnel, and for other purposes." They couldn't pass a bill to provide financial help to our soldiers and families in over a year, but Wall Street and bankers...

The article doesn't give the new limits they want, just that they're asking congress for permission to do it.

http://tinyurl.com/3z22ma

And I have to apologize, the best article I've found is from AP (don't touch that content) and it only seems to come up on our Wii.

Well it should be done by Monday, cause the WaPo says it's so.
http://tinyurl.com/3jrbol
As said elsewhere - oh crap.