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Gores to host Obama fundraiser Nashville | July 24, 2008 12:01:13 AM IST Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is preparing to host a Nashville fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, say officials. A spokeswoman for Gore, has confirmed that Al and Tipper Gore have agreed to the event although a date and location have not been set, nor even whether Obama himself would attend, The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper, reported Wednesday. Wade Munday, a spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party, said we would certainly welcome the senator with open arms should he arrive in Nashville before the October...

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will push for another economic stimulus package of approximately $50 billion. The California Democrat told CNN she favors that amount as a compromise between spurring the stagnating U.S. economy without forcing the nation deeply into more debt. I would hope we could have about a $50 billion -- there are others who want more, she said in a partial transcript released by the Speaker's office. But I think in the stimulus packages, you have to look at what helps stimulate the economy without spending more money than you should because you weight the...

Senator Barack Obama raised $52 million in June, his campaign announced Thursday, recording his second-best fund-raising month of the year through an aggressive mix of small and large contributions that produced more than twice the amount raised by Senator John McCain. After becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee last month, Mr. Obama also helped the Democratic National Committee markedly increase its fund-raising to $22.4 million in June. Together, the Obama campaign and the party have about $92.3 million in the bank, which is slightly less than Republicans, who began July with about $95 million.

California state government spent $145 billion last fiscal year, $41 billion more than four years ago when Gov. Gray Davis got recalled by voters. With all that new spending -- a whopping 40% increase -- we ought to be in a golden age of government with abundant public services for all. So why does it seem like the quality and quantity of government is not all that different from 2004? How many of us feel like we are getting 40% more public services, 40% better schools, roads, parks and so on? The Legislature and governor, grappling with another huge budget...

Things you never thought you’d see: Obama’s campaign manager begs for money posted at 1:46 pm on July 14, 2008 by Allahpundit I saw and duly dismissed as wishful thinking Karl’s and Patrick Ruffini’s posts last week speculating that St. Barack hadn’t released his June fundraising numbers yet because his money machine had finally broken down. After watching this, I wonder if they’re right. The obvious spin is that the sluggish contributions are simply an artifact of summer doldrums, but (per Ruffini) Kerry took in $30 million in June 2004, which would be slightly better than what Obama’s rumored to...

Barack Obama’s campaign, after three straight months of fundraising decline, is pushing back against reports that donors are cooling toward his candidacy. John McCain’s campaign announced Thursday that it had raised more than $22 million in June for his best month yet. Obama has not yet released his June figures, but The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the total haul was just over $30 million — which the paper called “underwhelming.” The Obama campaign swiftly disputed that account. “The Wall Street Journal report of our fundraising numbers is way off the mark,” Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said in a...

Is anybody worth $400 million? No, but Rush Limbaugh isn't just anybody.

Highlights of the article: The Fed would need the authority to access necessary information from complex financial institutions -- whether it is a commercial bank, an investment bank, a hedge fund, or another type of financial institution -- and the tools to intervene to mitigate systemic risk in advance of a crisis..... ...financial institutions must be allowed to fail... ...We have the Fed's broad lender of last resort powers which are currently being used to help stabilize our markets. Current law also allows our President to declare a national economic emergency, and then dictate the actions of commercial banks.... To...

Sen. Barack Obama has asked top contributors to help former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton retire the debt from her failed presidential campaign, an Obama campaign source said. Obama and Clinton ran a protracted race for the Democratic presidential nomination that left Clinton with a campaign debt of more than $22 million when she bowed out this month. About $12 million of that amount is money the senator from New York loaned to the campaign herself. Obama asked members of his National Finance Committee to contribute to Clinton's campaign if they were so inclined, but he did not direct them to...

Smokers in deprived parts of the British city of Dundee are to be paid to kick the habit in an initiative between public health organisations, municipal authorities and the Scottish government. The pilot scheme to be tried in Dundee, north of Edinburgh, will see smokers offered 12.50 pounds (15.8 euros, $24.7) per week to quit. Health bosses hope that 900 smokers will give up as a result in the next two years. The money will be credited onto an electronic card, which they can redeem at their local supermarket for fresh food and other groceries, but not cigarettes and alcohol,...

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Tuesday on donor nations to make good on their commitments to the Palestinian Authority and help build the security infrastructure needed for a viable state. "Because of the inter-related nature of the criminal justice sector it is crucial for the donor community to take on all the projects that the PA has identified. Neglecting any one could jeopardize the entire effort," Rice said. "We encourage donors to commit new pledges and to allocate uncommitted funds from existing pledges to support this effort." The international community pledged seven billion dollars in Paris in December...

The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) wants the Federal Government's drought policy to help prepare farmers for climate change. Yesterday, the Federal Government announced the detail of how it will review the policy, which has previously defined drought as a once in 20 or 25 year event. Exceptional Circumstances (EC) support and farm exit packages will be reviewed as part of an economic assessment of drought policy. The Government has also announced a panel will look at the social effect of drought, and the weather bureau and CSIRO will report on climate change. VFF president Simon Ramsay says farms need to...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton plan to meet with some of her top contributors next week in an effort to calm donors who remain frustrated with Obama's presidential campaign. The meeting is set for June 26 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, several top Clinton fundraisers said Tuesday. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers. Jonathan Mantz, Clinton's national finance director, notified donors about the meeting by e-mail Tuesday and urged them to attend and to contribute to Obama, who clinched the Democratic Party's nomination on June 3. Two people closely involved with...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Monday that rising U.S. government spending on health care risks triggering runaway budget deficits that could put economic stability in danger. "There are limits to how big the deficit and the debt can be," he said in response to questions after a speech to a health-care event organized by the Senate Finance Committee. "Soon it will begin to have effects on interest rates, it will have effects on economic growth, and on stability, so ... it's not just balancing the federal budget, it's really a much broader question of the...

WASHINGTON - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Saturday he is donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. Conrad said it appears that Countrywide waived 1 point on his mortgage for a Bethany Beach, Del., vacation home. He said he would donate the equivalent amount of money to Habitat for Humanity. "Although I did not ask for or know that I was receiving a discount, and even though I was offered a competitive loan from another lender, I do not want to...

HOUSTON -- A college student’s trip to Wal-Mart last month ended with her in handcuffs and a two-day stay in the Harris County jail. Nitra Gipson was charged with felony forgery after the Meyer Park Wal-Mart manager accused her of passing bogus money orders. Thing is, the money orders were legit and had been purchased at Wal-Mart to begin with. The cash-strapped college student had just sold her car to pay for her last two semesters at Texas Southern University, where she is studying criminal justice. She was paid with Wal-Mart money orders, which the giant retailer advertises as “good...

According to Barack Obama, high gas prices don’t really constitute a problem for Americans. He stated yesterday that the reason for our anger is the rapid increase in prices, not the prices themselves. Obama claimed that Americans would have accepted a “gradual adjustment” to the current cost

MONTERREY, Mexico - U.S. lawmakers will review the language of a US$1.4 billion anti-drug plan that Mexican officials contend infringes on their nation's sovereignty, a senior U.S. senator said Sunday.

Barack Obama will be welcomed back to Hollywood on June 24 for his first fundraiser in L.A. since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. The event is likely to draw the largest congregation of celebrities and local heavy-hitters attending a political event since late January, when Obama met with Sen. Hillary Clinton at their initial one-on-one debate at the Kodak Theatre. That televised confrontation, which launched the final stretch of the long-fought Democratic nominating race, drew showbiz notables including Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pierce Brosnan, Stevie Wonder as well as a who's who of state and local...

The photo was taken from across a four-lane boulevard (WuZhong Road) in south Shanghai City, China. Waiting for a bus, I could get no closer. I appologize for the poor quality. I carry a little mass storage device that happens to have a cheap camara installed. The major function of the unit is MP3/4 ; the camara is a low quality 2 megapixel piece of junk. But I do catch some amazing things from-time-to-time. If you can blow up the photo just a bit, you will see a new bank that opened near our place in Shanghai. It is called...

Mexico is beginning to look like a real war zone. The headlines in the news media are reminiscent of those from some of the most brutal days of the Iraq War. They speak of executions, beheadings, cryptic messages and dozens of people killed in a single day. But the war against drugs that Mexico is waging is not one that can easily eliminate the enemies. snip The Mexican government has made the fight against drugs its No. 1 priority.snip The rival drug cartels are killing each other off, law enforcement agents are hunting down drug dealers, and their hit men...

No denial. France of today is a magnificent nation. The almost perfect blend of shopping opportunities, beauty of architechture and landscape, nice freeways, marvelous food, well educated people and high-tech solutions are just about everywhere. Today, even a place like Paris or Monaco (not "de jure" French) has become poorer than Hamburg, Switzerland, Inner City London and Scandinavia, but Paris and Monaco still live up to their former reputation in many ways. Personally, I admire good old France. Just have a look at it: 25% study Sociology 25% are retired 25% are unemployed 25% are on strike Where does the...

Probably almost everyone is familiar with the hyperinflationary episode that engulfed Germany after the First World War. That nation’s economy was crippled by monetary problems that resulted in dreadful personal hardships, even though up to that time Germany had achieved one of the highest living standards in the world. The newly formed German government, named for the city where their constitution was drafted after the Kaiser’s abdication in 1918, kept pumping up the money supply. The process started relatively slowly, but quickly the pace of money creation accelerated. The Weimar government was paying its bills on credit – just like...

This is good and oh so true!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: A Billion How many zeros in a billion? This is too true to be funny. The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases. A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959. B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. C. A billion hours ago our ancestors...

This is one seriously funny cartoon! If you're serious about keeping 100% of your stimulus money in America, then there are precious few places you can spend it to accomplish this. Check out this "Geeks on Caffeine" cartoon. You may not agree with how these "Economic Patriots" spend their money, but you can't argue they kept it in the U.S.! FUNNY!!!!!!

In Zimbabwe, inflation is measured by the hour, not month-over-month as in America and the rest of the developed world. Zimbabwe’s few remaining merchants update their price tags four, five, or more times a day—that is, when shipments arrive on time, or haven’t been hijacked. For many people, life is a struggle just to get their paycheck to the store quickly enough so that it doesn’t lose value before it can be spent. Life is even harder for the millions who no longer have jobs at all—destroyed by an economy in meltdown. A report released by Zimbabwe’s Central Statistical Office...

CLEVELAND - The federal government isn't used to being snubbed when it offers to help local governments. When it offered Chardon Township in Ohio $10,000 in disaster aid for a snowstorm in March, the locals said no thanks. Township Trustee Chuck Strazinsky told The Plain Dealer for a story published Friday that it was a typical snowstorm unworthy of federal aid. He says the money should be reserved for true emergencies.

Prosecutor To Rezko Jury: "He Did It For Money"May 12, 2008 6:19 pm US/Central CHICAGO (CBS) ― Political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko's defense attorney ripped into the government's star witness against his client Monday, describing him as an admitted lifelong liar and swindler whose brain was all but rendered useless by three decades of abusing powerful narcotics. "He said he is a felon, he admitted he is a liar many times over, he said he is a thief, and I don't know if he said he was a drug addict, but he was a drug abuser," Joseph J. Duffy said...

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but success does. Capitalism, moored in values of hard work, honesty, and fairness, is key. On July 23, 2000, a forty-two-year-old forklift operator in Corbin, Kentucky, named Mack Metcalf was working a 12-hour nightshift. On his last break, he halfheartedly checked the Sunday paper for the winning Kentucky lottery numbers. He didn’t expect to be a winner, of course—but hey, you never know. Mack Metcalf’s ticket, it turned out, was the winner of the $65 million Powerball jackpot, and it changed his life forever. What did he do first? He quit his job. “I clocked out...

Hillary Clinton's decision to lend her presidential campaign $6.4 million from assets she holds jointly with her husband is rekindling questions about millions of dollars that Bill Clinton has been paid for speeches and other work since he left the White House. In tapping some of that cash, ''the Clintons have effectively bypassed campaign finance reform in a manner that's ingenious -- using Bill Clinton effectively as a front for the fundraising,'' said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor. Beginning days after he left the White House in 2001, the ex-president has been crisscrossing the globe, speaking...

A scandal has been emerging in the trial lawyer industry. It points to a potentially cancerous growth in our economy that is killing jobs and hampering prosperity at a time when families are being pummeled by the rising cost of living. What are Democrats in Congress planning to do about it? So far, the answer has been: nothing.

The Fed said it was boosting the amount of emergency reserves it supplies to U.S. banks to $150 billion in May, from the $100 billion it supplied in April. The Fed took this action and several other moves to boost credit in coordination with the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised a stunning $3.5 million last night within hours of winning Pennsylvania, and her campaign says today's total may reach $10 million, giving her run a needed boost as she tries to knock Sen. Barack Obama from his front-runner perch. The two campaigns are up with their spin this morning, with each focusing on the next races and arguing they can win in November. Mr. Obama won a new endorsement from Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and may roll out a group of superdelegates who support him today. But Team Clinton — fueled with new money after...

Turns out Hillary Rodham Clinton 's victory Tuesday came with a cash prize. In the hours after winning Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary, Clinton's campaign said she raised $3.5 million, marking her best overnight performance ever. Clinton, desperate to fight on against a flush Barack Obama, could certainly use the money. On Sunday, the campaign revealed that at the end of March it had just over $9 million in the bank and $10 million in debt. Obama had more than $40 million cash on hand at the start of April. Obama has been able to tap a formidable network of donors...

[snip] It sure seems like the rich are more likely to be “very happy” than the rest of us. Is this a big effect? In 2005, Robert Frank argued: When we plot average happiness versus income for clusters of people in a given country at a given time, we see that rich people are in fact much happier than poor people. It’s actually an astonishingly large difference. There’s no one single change you can imagine that would make your life improve on the happiness scale as much as to move from the bottom 5 percent on the income scale to...

The under-30 crowd may be saddled with college loans, scratching for jobs and living on plastic, but they have one thing their elders can only envy: time. Time to get their finances in order and let the magic of compound interest turn a quail-size nest egg into a honking stash that will see them through their later years. Now, if Lesley Scorgie can just get their attention and change some habits -- like overspending and undersaving. "Our generation is the have-to-have generation, and we are not willing to wait -- to save for things -- anymore," said Scorgie, a frugal-minded...

Analysis: How Iranians are Avoiding Sanctions April 14, 2008 The Financial Times Anna Fifield in Tehran When Shahrom, a Tehran developer, wants to transfer thousands of dollars to his property investment business in Dubai, or to associates in the US, he does not go to the bank. Instead, like thousands of other Iranian business people, he turns to his trusted money changer. Using a centuries-old financial transfer system known as havaleh in Iran and elsewhere as hawala, its Arabic name, Shahrom moves his money easily – and just about invisibly. “I usually transfer money into my own account in Dubai...

Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Sen. John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist. The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.

Is M3 1 really gone? After reading this little known press release a few weeks ago, I started to wonder… and the surprising result is that (except for the Eurodollars element of M3), the data is still available with which to reconstruct M3.

The Federal Reserve is considering contingency plans for expanding its lending power in the event its recent steps to unfreeze credit markets fail. Among the options: Having the Treasury borrow more money than it needs to fund the government and leave the proceeds on deposit at the Fed; issuing debt under the Fed's name rather than the Treasury's; and asking Congress for immediate authority for the Fed to pay interest on commercial-bank reserves instead of waiting until a previously enacted law permits it in 2011. No moves are imminent because the Fed still has plenty of balance sheet room for...

Video clip of Fox News discussing some serious waste on the part of federal government workers.

Mr Prasad had saved up for his old age (Pictures: Prashant Ravi) A trader in the Indian state of Bihar has lost his life savings after termites infesting his bank's safe deposit boxes ate them up.Dwarika Prasad had deposited currency notes and investment papers worth hundreds of thousands of rupees in a bank safe in the state capital Patna. The bank says it put up a notice warning customers of the termites. Mr Prasad says he did not see it in time as he did not go to the bank for months after the notice went up. Bank officials...

The board of the International Monetary Fund voted on Monday to cut 15 per cent of its staff and sell about $11bn (€7bn, £5.5bn) in gold reserves in one of the biggest shake-ups of its funding since it was founded. The IMF plan to cut 380 jobs and sell 403.3 tonnes of gold, about an eighth of its reserves, still has to be approved by other authorities. The reforms have the support of the US Treasury, but the gold sales must be approved by Congress, which is unlikely to happen until after the presidential elections this year. Other changes in...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

HAVANA (AP) - President Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on consumer goods and hotel stays, but most Cubans get paid in virtually worthless pesos, which can't buy basic items like toilet paper, let alone a DVD player or poolside mojito cocktails at the Hotel Capri. Nearly everything Cubans want or need must be bought with a separate currency created for tourists and foreigners. So, until the regular peso increases in value, Castro's moves will be bittersweet gestures. The new leader's solution, now the talk of the island: merge the two currencies. But this turns out to be much easier said...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Wednesday, April 2, 2008 ArchivesPermanent Link HAVE YOU seen the new five-dollar bill? It looks like someone spilled grape juice on it. A violet stain obscures Abraham Lincoln's face. On the back, an oversized numeral five appears in purple. Enough is enough. We must stop the desecration of our currency. The U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing claims it is making our banknotes "safer, smarter and more secure". They say the violet stain on Lincoln's face adds "complexity", rendering counterfeiting more difficult. The big purple five on the back supposedly helps vision-impaired people count...

These past few weeks have provided an unfortunate opportunity to discuss inflation. The dollar index has reached new all-time lows. The total money supply, M3, as calculated by private sources, is growing at a disturbing 17% rate. The Fed is pumping dollars into the economy at an alarming rate. Just recently the Fed announced new loan auctions totaling $100 billion. That is new money created from thin air. If these money auctions, combined with the bailout of Bear Stearns, continue to be the trend, we are in for some economic stormy weather. The explanation lies in understanding the basics of...

Subject: TIPS ON PUMPING GAS Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when theground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big...

Amid widespread financial turmoil and talk of recession, we asked five experts at the American Enterprise Institute to grade and assess the Federal Reserve’s recent policy decisions. Here are their responses.

The disgraced law firm of Milberg Weiss faces federal indictments for kickbacks and corruption in pursuing class-action lawsuits, along with its founder, and three of its senior partners have already pled guilty. One might think that politicians associated with the firm and the indicted partners would cut all ties and dump their contributions. However, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama have done so despite the investigation being public since 2002: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has received more campaign money from disgraced lawyers at the controversial Milberg Weiss law firm than any other member of Congress, but she won’t say...