| Rogue trader in court's hands, but fate of Societe Generale shakier ...
He insists there is no "sickness" at the bank and predicted "a remarkable will to rebuild" among employees. Jean-Pierre Mustier, head of the bank's corporate and investment banking arm, has said the bank will pay staff to retain them amid the crisis. "I have no doubt that a certain number of competitors, as they do every year, will try to poach people," he said. Hit by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, and now the trading scandal, Societe Generale's shares have lost more than half of their value since last year's high close of €158.42 ($233.75) on May 5. Although its shares were up €2.77 ($4.09) to €73.02 ($107.74) in midday Paris trading Tuesday, the bank risks dropping to third place behind Credit Agricole among France's biggest banks by market value.
Saint Joe and the impending global financial crisis
The wreckage in the housing market just keeps piling up. Sales of existing homes in October dipped 23.5 percent from last year. Prices on new homes dropped 13 percent year over year. Third quarter foreclosures skyrocketed to 635,000, a 94 percent increase over last October and an all-time high on the misery-meter. The real estate market is in free-fall and the real trouble hasn't even begun yet. California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida are mired in a full-blown housing depression. Inventory is off the chart. Presently, there's a 10.8-month backlog and the numbers are steadily rising. If foreclosures continue at the current pace, by the end of 2008, there'll be a 14-month inventory. That means that every builder in the country could drop his tool belt right now and stop working FOR MORE THAN A YEAR before the market would clear.
Farmers Wonder if Boom In Grain Prices Is a Bubble
Come spring, Tim Recker plans to demolish two rotting barns and a dilapidated workshop on his 1,500-acre farm in Arlington, Iowa. In their place will sit about three acres of rich, black topsoil prime for capitalizing on the biggest global grain boom in decades. "Every acre is more valuable than it was five years ago," says Mr. Recker, a farmer and land excavator. With corn, wheat, soybeans, barley, sunflowers and other grains selling at or near record prices, U.S. farmers are preparing for a potentially historic planting season. A rush to make biofuels from crops and soaring demand for grains in China, India and other emerging markets have pushed up grain prices world-wide, helping drive food prices higher. .
The Shameful State of the Union
The 2008 appropriations bills include $506.9 billion for the Department of Defense and the nuclear weapons activities of the Department of Energy, plus an additional $189.4 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. [1] Other military funding is located in the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. Congress has approved nearly $700 billion to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is the appropriated amount. It doesn't include costs to society — loss of life, injuries, etc. The amount spent on war-fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq now exceeds the inflation-adjusted amount spent on the Vietnam War. [2] The United States accounts for roughly half of the world's military expenditures. [3] Depending on how you count, more than half of all discretionary federal spending is now directed to the military.
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