Society's ChildS


Wall Street

Bank profits hammered by economic turmoil

John W. Schoen
MSNBC
Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:12 UTC
This is not a great time to be a banker - - whether your customers are on Wall Street or Main Street.
Image
© Unknown

Battered by a slowing economy, a falling stock market and their customers' worries about a looming recession in Europe, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America reported Tuesday that they lost money on their core banking operations.

Bank of America was able to record a profit of $6.2 billion for the quarter, thanks to accounting gains and the sale of a large stake in a Chinese bank, which offset lower revenue and income in its credit card, real estate and investment banking businesses.

The deal also helped knock Bank of America off its perch as the largest U.S. bank by assets, which fell to $2.21 trillion in the quarter. The Charlotte, N.C., bank cedes bragging rights to rival JPMorgan Chase & Co., which reported total assets of $2.28 trillion.


Comment: What are we supposed to do? Feel sorry for them?! The poor banksters only have over 2,000 1 Billion dollar pile$ of money. How will Bank of America ever resume its perch? Inquiring minds want to know!

The slimming down reflects Bank of America's strategy of cutting costs and selling off businesses that don't fit into its simpler banking model. CEO Brian Moynihan told analysts Tuesday he had begun the process of a "strategic transformation of the company."

Comment: No doubt these corporate psychopaths will find it a real pleasure to write off all those 'losses' and have to pay little or no tax.

How long before the banksters are crying "stimulus" again?

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Attention

China: Hit-And-Run Toddler - Why People Walked on And Did Nothing


News.com, Australia
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:34 UTC

There are no excuses that explain why nearly 20 people ignored a critically injured toddler and left her to die in China - but that hasn't stopped some of the passers-by from trying to dodge the blame.

The world united in grief yesterday as CCTV footage showed the horrific scenes as a two-year-old girl was twice run over in a narrow street and abandoned as she bled into the gutter.

Ignored Injured Toddler
© News.com.auAbout 20 people walked or drove past her without stopping to help.
Pictures show 18 people callously passed by little YueYue, who is now fighting for her life in critical condition following the incident in Foshan city in China's Guandong province.
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Info

US: Schools Close After Animals Escape Muskingum Co. Exotic Animal Farm


10Tv.com
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:54 UTC
Escape Bear
© 10tv.comBear.

Several schools announced that they will not have school on Wednesday after exotic animals escaped a Muskingum County animal farm.

The schools are: Maysville Local Schools, Zanesville City Schools, Foxfire Community Schools and West Muskingum Local Schools.

Police said they had shot at least 25 of at least 48 escaped exotic animals on Tuesday night.

Terry Thompson, the owner of the farm, was found dead outside of his home on the animal farm property.

Police said the fences had been left unsecured.

According to police, the animals escaped at about 6 p.m. from an animal farm near Kopchak Road.

Police would not comment on what animals escaped but said the animal farm did have lions, wolves, cheetahs, tigers, giraffes, camels, grizzly bears and black bears.

"It's been a bad situation for a long time and the last thing we want to do is to have any of our public hurt," said Muskingum Sheriff Matt Lutz. "No young kids should go outside tonight."

According to police, bears and wolves had been shot and killed.
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Attention

Fukushima victims are desperate, angry, homeless


MSNBC / Reuters
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:50 UTC
Image
© Staff / ReutersEvacuees who fled from Namie town near the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant listen to government officials' explanations about how to apply for compensation at their temporary housing complex in Fukushima on Oct. 6.
At last, victims of Japan's nuclear crisis can claim compensation. And they are angry.

They are furious at the red tape they have to wade through just to receive basic help and in despair they still cannot get on with their lives seven months after the huge quake and tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

Shouts fill a room at a temporary housing complex where seven officials, kneeling in their dark suits, face 70 or so tenants who were forced to abandon their homes near the Fukushima nuclear plant after some of its reactors went into meltdown after the March 11 quake struck.

"We don't know who we can trust!" one man yelled in the cramped room where the officials were trying to explain the hugely complex procedures to claim compensation.

"Can we actually go back home? And if not, can you guarantee our livelihoods?"
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Attention

Greek union warns of austerity 'death spiral'

Renee Maltezou
Reuters
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:05 UTC
Greek protest
© Reuters/Yiorgos karahalisA woman shouts slogans during a rally of the 'Indignant' group in front of the parliament in Athens October 15, 2011.
Greece risks sliding into a "death spiral" if the government continues to slash salaries and lay off workers instead of cracking down on tax evasion and raising money from the rich, the head of the biggest public sector union said Tuesday.

Speaking ahead of a 48-hour general strike called to protest tough new austerity measures, due to be approved this week, Costas Tsikrikas, head of the 500,000-strong ADEDY union, accused Prime Minister George Papandreou's Socialist government of blindly pursuing austerity measures that would plunge Greece deeper into recession.

"This will exacerbate recession, unemployment and state revenues will continue to fall, creating a death spiral. It must not continue," Tsikrikas told Reuters in an interview and urged lawmakers to reject the package when it is voted in parliament Wednesday and Thursday.
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Family

SOTT Focus: US: New York - Zuccotti Park, A Photo Essay on A Political Movement and the Kindness of Strangers


Sott.net
Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:02 UTC

Comment: A Sott editor goes to Wall Street to do a photo essay on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) situation:


Over the weekend, I went to the OWS demonstration and they surely didn't disappoint. Saturday's group was organized and calm as four building to sidewalk blocks were taken up with the group. Although there was a fire in their bellies, they showed a dignified grace under pressure as they walked flanked by police officers on foot, motorcycles and black SUV's.

Image
© Sott.net
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© Sott.net
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© Sott.netSomeone taking videos of bystanders.
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Family

Bernie Sanders: 'Occupy' protests pushing Obama to stand with working people

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:22 UTC
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Monday night that the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration presented Barack Obama with an opportunity to stand with working people and push for a new jobs bill.

"I think what the president is catching on to is that the American people want him to stand up tall and straight on behalf of working families who are struggling desperately today and take on the big money interests who are so powerful and the wealthiest people who are doing phenomenally well," he said.


The senator noted that polls have found Americans are more sympathetic with the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters than the tea party movement.
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Chalkboard

Private prison industry grows despite critics

Scott Cohn
CNBC
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:45 UTC
Kuna, Idaho - The biggest prison in the state of Idaho is also the toughest.

The Idaho Correctional Center - the ICC - was so violent that employees and inmates had a name for the place: Gladiator School.
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© CNBCDozens of people gathered in New York City in May, 2011 to protest hedge funds investing in private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group.

"That was because of the assaults," said Todd Goertzen, a former corrections counselor at the prison. "That's why they called it Gladiator School, because of that reason. If you're going to ICC, it's going to be fight or die, basically."

This is the story of a dangerous business: the billions of dollars that flow into the American prison industry and the companies that profit from it.

No nation on the planet holds more of its people behind bars: 2.3 million prisoners - as many as China and Russia combined. The nation's prisons employ nearly 800,000 workers, more than the auto manufacturing industry.

Small towns are trying to get in on the boom, along with architects, health care providers and technology companies. They're all after their piece of the billions behind bars.
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People

Marine veteran on 'Occupy' protests: This is our time to change greed in America

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:13 UTC
The Marine Corps veteran seen in videos shouting at New York City police officers during the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration appeared Monday night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the situation.

Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, confronted a group of police officers and gave them a stern lecture at the top of his voice about how they should not be hurting peaceful American protesters.

"I've been to Iraq twice," he told Olbermann. "I was in a riot in Rutba in 2004, where we had rocks thrown at us and after the rocks were thrown we didn't go beating up people and arresting people. We treated them with a level of humility."

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Che Guevara

Chris Hedges: 'Corporations have carried out a coup d'état in my country'

Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:40 UTC
In an interview published Monday, taken in Times Square during Saturday's global day of protests, Pulitzer-winning writer Chris Hedges explained his view of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and why he's supporting it.

"I spent 20 years overseas, I'm a war correspondent," he said. "I came back and realized that corporations have carried out a coup d'état in my country."


Hedges wrote for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Christian Science Monitor, and was part of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for a series of articles examining the terrorist attacks on the United States and profiling the al Qaeda network.

"I covered the street demonstrations that brought down Milošević, I've covered both of the Palestinian intifadas, and once movements like this start and articulate a fundamental truth about the society that they live in, and expose the repression, the mendacity, the corruption and the decay of structures of power, then they have a kind of centrifugal force, you never know where they're going."
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