Opens Today

See this movie.

The real, actual "Matrix"

Or at least, the Republican, Right Wing Matrix they want you to stick with:

Sprint labeled one of the "9 Great American Companies That Will Never Recover"

There's an article out right now, showing the companies that won't likely come back from the 2008 financial crush.

One of them is, as the title says, our own Sprint company is one of them:

"24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of these companies that won't be making comebacks -- names that you know well, but that will never be leaders again."

What they have to say about them:

Sprint finally posted some reasonably good results recently. However, these could not mask the fact that the No. 3 wireless carrier is too small to ever really compete with AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Sprint's $35 billion Nextel purchase in 2004 can be seen in retrospect as a key blunder. Their networks ran on different platforms, and integration issues drove customers away from the combined company. Sprint made the MSN "Customer Service Hall of Shame" several times, most recently in 2010. Its customer service has improved significantly since then, but the damage had been done.

Sprint's revenue has fallen from $41.1 billion in 2007 to $33.7 billion last year. It now has about 50 million subscribers to Verizon's 104 million and AT&T's 95 million. As a Morningstar researcher recently noted, "While Sprint has struggled, Verizon Wireless and AT&T have benefited at its expense. Fending off these much larger rivals will be increasingly difficult as data services become more important to the industry."

Not good. Not good at all.

Some of the other companies: Band of America, Dell Computer, Barnes & Noble and The New York Times.

Link: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/01/9-great-american-companies-that-will-never-recover/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D188353#photo-6

Let's put into place the Robin Hood tax

To repeat, the Robin Hood Tax campaign is calling for a tax of less than one-half of 1% on Wall Street transactions that could generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

This tax on Wall Street could provide funding to kickstart the economy and get America back on its feet by creating jobs and strengthening public services like health care, education and infrastructure at home while tackling AIDS, global health, poverty and climate challenges around the world.

It's an idea whose time has long-since come.

Please support the Robin Hood Tax. Let your representatives in Washington, DC know you're for it.

Sure, we'll sue a German bank...

U.S. sues German bank over home loans

Deutsche Bank is accused of unfairly sticking American taxpayers with a monster tab.

To date, the U.S. government has brought few cases against big Wall Street banks in response to the mortgage crisis that nearly toppled the world's financial system almost three years ago. But the Justice Department today filed suit against Deutsche Bank for hundreds of millions of dollars, alleging that the banking giant unfairly stuck taxpayers with the tab for bad home loans it issued.

The complaint, filed in Federal District Court in New York, accused Deutsche Bank of failing to adequately scrutinize potential borrowers, then lying to government officials about its lapses of due diligence

Yeah, we'll jump all over a foreign, in this case, German, bank.  We'll sue them.  We'll go after them for lying to and cheating and stealing from Americans but an American bank?

Where are the lawsuits against Countrywide?

And since Bank of America bought Countrywide, where are the lawsuits against them?

And while we're at it, where are the lawsuits against Goldman Sachs for both pushing junk loans in one part of the company but then betting those same junk loans will fail in a different part of the same company, all to gain billions of dollars in profits?

Where are THOSE lawsuits?

We know the answer.

The people above pay their representatives "campaign finance" money--far better and more accurately known as bribes--to get whatever they want in the form of legislation and/or, in this case, just to be quiet and leave them alone.

Well, that and the fact that Goldman Sachs is IN the White House, has been for years and is having their way with us.

Paying attention to the banks lately?

From Yahoo! News and the Associated Press this morning: Regulators shut banks in Florida, Washington state WASHINGTON – Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Florida and Washington state, bringing to 127 the number of U.S. bank failures this year on a wave of loan defaults and economic distress. But here's the clincher for me: With 127 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures exceeds that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 95 banks. And whereas last year most of the bank failures were due to home mortgage loans that went sour, this year it's gone commercial and so, likely, possibly much more expensive and damaging: The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. Many companies have shut down in the recession, vacating shopping malls and office buildings financed by the loans. That has brought delinquent loan payments and defaults by commercial developers. I took this last note to be somewhat positive--the proverbial "silver lining to the cloud": The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. Anyway, for now, we're not "out of the woods" by a long shot, yet. Here's hoping things get better. And the sooner the better, too, of course. Try to have a great weekend, y'all. Link to original story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100925/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bank_closures/print