Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department said Monday that it would sell its remaining ownership stake in insurance giant American International Group, effectively ending one of the largest bailouts of the financial crisis and turning a profit for taxpayers.</p> <p>The sale of the Treasury's remaining 234 million shares -- 15.9% of the company -- would add to the $15.1 billion in profit the government already has made on the bailout. The Treasury would still hold warrants in AIG after the stock sale.</p>

If the U.S. was a company, would you buy, hold, or sell the stock? A voluminous report put out last year by Mary Meeker sought to answer that very question. Since we’re in the thick of the presidential elections, why not review the important financial state of our great nation.For those of you who may not know who she is, Mary Meeker is the well-known partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who is also affectionately known as the “Queen of Internet.” Apparently, beyond her renowned expertise in analyzing and valuing tech companies and start-ups, she also has the knack...

Okay, I am selling my house in NJ because the property taxes, income taxes and insurance are out of control. Overall we'll be saving $6000-$10000 per year if we move. My wife's drive to work will be about the same my drive will be 10 minutes further. The main reason wanting to leave NJ are for the obvious reasons as I think this state will never change and possibly continue its downward spiral. Anyone that lives in PA that lived in NJ...is there anything to warn me of? Am I going from the frying pan to the frying pan or...

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is selling about half its stake in China Construction Bank for $8.3 billion, in its latest effort to shed assets and boost capital. A group of investors is buying 13.1 billion CCB shares from Bank of America, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The U.S. bank declined to name the investors but two sources said Singapore state fund Temasek was among the buyers. Bank of America needs to boost capital by some $50 billion in the coming years to meet new global rules, according to multiple analyst estimates. CCB is...

Boomer retirement could slow U.S. recovery CNNMoney 12:02 PM CDT, August 22, 2011 The aging of the U.S. baby boom generation may slow an already weak recovery as boomers sell stocks to pay for retirement, according to research released Monday from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. Many baby boomers have already sold some assets in preparation for retirement, research adviser Zheng Liu and Mark Spiegel, vice president of economic research, said in the latest San Francisco Fed Economic Letter.

SEATTLE - He ruled Russia almost a century ago, and yet, somehow, a statue of communist leader Vladimir Lenin found its way to Seattle. It's not one of the city's more famous landmarks - like the Space Needle or Pike Place Market. Instead, the 16-foot-tall statue of the divisive dictator is tucked away in a more residential spot in Seattle's Fremont district. He is as controversial today as he was decades ago. "Why do we have a statue of him?" asked Erin Derring, as she walked by. "We couldn't imagine such a statue in America - you understand why," added...

pre-market data.

A mother walks into a Taco Bell...and what does she do? No, she doesn't order a Beefy 5 Layer Burrito. She peddles her three-day old to a customer. Some people just shouldn't have children. Heidi Lynn Knowles, 36, of Vancouver, Wash., reportedly stumbled into the restaurant and started taking bids from customers for her newborn son. The asking price ranged from $500 to $5,000. The cops were later called and showed up at a motel where Knowles was crashed. She was charged with attempted child selling-buying, a Class C felony, and was held on $50,000 bail. Some customers reported that...

Aircraft carriers gain clout in naval power By SLOBODAN LEKIC The Associated Press 6:01 a.m. Sunday, May 8, 2011 ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE — Despite growing controversy about the cost and relevance of aircraft carriers, navies around the world are adding new ones to their inventories at a pace unseen since World War II. The U.S. — with more carriers than all other nations combined — and established naval powers such as Britain, France and Russia are doing it. So are Brazil, India and China — which with Russia form the BRIC grouping of emerging economic giants. "The whole...

I’ve often wondered if the early Web pioneers had it all to do over again if Web companies would have put less of an emphasis on free. People have been conditioned against paying for services or content on the Web, and the Web elite only have each other to blame. For all the talk of Web companies getting users first and “figuring out” how to make money later, the only two jaw-droppingly, multi-billion-dollar, innovative new ways to advertise online have been Google’s paid search ads and Groupon’s solution to unlocking local ad dollars on a mass scale. Those who win...

It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. Actually, it's quite good—for your family, and for our troops overseas. This, of course, is the weekend for costumed kids to go door to door collecting candy—probably way more than any child could or should eat. What to do with the excess haul? Check out the Halloween Candy Buy Back program. To participate, you bring your candy tonnage to a dentist's office, where they'll pay you $1 per pound no matter if you've got lollipops or Snickers, M&Ms or Smarties, or any other candy collected during Trick or Treat raids. The dentists...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block. A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbour Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants."Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix...

CHICAGO — In a deal intended to help keep the invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, a Chinese meat packing company will buy fish taken from Illinois rivers to send to China where it is a delicacy. Big River Fisheries in Pearl, Ill., will catch, process and ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of next year and sell it to Beijing Zhuochen Animal Husbandry Company, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced Tuesday. "The high quality and taste of the wild Asian carp from Big River Fish far exceeded our expectations. We see a tremendous...

Hey jet-setters, listen up: Greece might have a killer deal for you – the opportunity to own some of its world-renowned islands. And you can get some serious deals (well, at least as far as private islands go!). As the cash-strapped country struggles to repay its debt, it is putting big swaths of land on some its 6,000 islands up for sale or long-term lease, The Guardian reports. Greece denies these allegations, saying it has "no involvement" in the sale of the islands and calling the report "insulting" and "untrue," the Wall Street Journal says. With these conflicting reports, it's...

With an enormous circle of flames shooting up Thursday from a steel mill furnace in Memphis, 57 crime guns melted away. "Those guns aren't coming back," said Thad Solomon, general manager of the Nucor Steel facility neighboring a power plant in Southwest Memphis. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has about 285 more confiscated guns collected from a Criminal Court Clerk's evidence room that would have met the same fiery end since 2006. However, a new state law requires that law enforcement agencies sell or trade the guns unless they are unsafe or inoperable. Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell met with...

White House officials eager to sell the most popular aspects of the health reform law are focusing on four areas to gain votes and popularity for key lawmakers ahead of November's midterm elections. Politico: "Top administration officials, who meet regularly with outside special interest groups to coordinate the public relations effort, have so far focused on expediting and amplifying four key areas of the new law: expanding coverage to young adults, covering sick people with pre-existing conditions or high medical costs, providing tax breaks to small businesses and helping a select group of seniors pay for prescription drugs." Politico reports...

My advice, if you are heavily invested sell everything tommorrow. Obama is attacking the Health Care industry, the dollar is collapsing, the budget deficit was nearly $1.5 TRillion for FY 09. Buy Gold or preserve principle in a money market.

British victims of the credit crunch are offering to sell their kidneys for £25,000 or more to help pay debts, an investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed. At least a dozen adverts have appeared on the internet offering kidneys for sale from British “donors”. Five of the sellers corresponded with undercover journalists, who posed as friends and relatives of sick patients to negotiate sales. One person willing to sell a kidney is a 26-year-old mental health nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after a business he set up went bankrupt. Another is a 43-year-old taxi...

FARMERS in north India are selling their wives to survive, it has been revealed. Left without money due to failing crops, farmers in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, have reportedly sold their wives to money lenders for 4,000-12,000 rupees (€55-€170). The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price, it was claimed. The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading Vivaha Anubandh (marriage contract). Most of the women are illiterate and cannot read the "contract".

The City Council is considering a program to let the Police Department sell confiscated guns to licensed dealers. Sales could net $10,000 a year. Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo. - This conservative city is taking an unusual, some might say extreme, step to try to stem its fiscal woes: It's entering the gun business.