Baltimore – (TFN): Hallelujah, the markets work! You have no idea how happy I was this morning when I opened the Wall Street Journal and found an article detailing Goldman Sachs shareholder anger at the recent bonus payouts.

Now, I don’t care who makes what. That’s between bosses and their worker bees. But I do get a little peeved when Uncle Sam tries to tell some worker he can’t get paid per his contract.

Before you go shouting about how Washington saved Wall Street and therefore we, as taxpayers, get a say over pay, let me ask you this. Does your mortgage company tell you what color to paint little Johnnie’s room? Does your car loan provider tell you how fast to drive? Does your health insurance provider tell control your diet?

Didn’t think so.

If some congressman came barging in this office right now, demanding I slash my pay, his goons

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Buried down at the bottom of this blog post attacking Obama's Russia policy (mostly just picking on Joe Biden - it is the National Journal after all), are some interesting quotes from Igor Yurgens - a key advisor to Medvedev and one of those few remaining in the Kremlin who make quite a lot of sense."The dichotomy of attitudes towards Russia in the U.S. administration does not make things easy for us," said Igor Yurgens, an economic policy adviser to Medvedev, at a Nov. 5 lecture in London hosted by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. "It is a problem." (...)

Putting historical wrongs, real and perceived, to rest is especially important because there are issues where Washington's and Moscow's interests converge, none bigger than Afghanistan. (...)

Stabilizing Afghanistan is even more crucial. While

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Don Miller, Associate Editor of Money Morning, reviews the process and implications of the Fed’s possible plan for raising intereste rates without actually raising the rate itself.

Don Miller (Money Morning): The U.S. Federal Reserve may take an unorthodox approach to raising interest rates by paying interest on bank reserves rather than relying on traditional open market remedies, as it exits from its long-term fiscal stimulus programs, Reuters reported today (Tuesday).

Paying interest on reserves is mostly untested and would represent an unexpected twist in the Fed’s response to the financial meltdown.

“In the old days … the Fed controlled the federal funds rate with open market operations,” Antulio Bomfim, a former Fed economist now with Macroeconomic Advisors LLC in Washington told Reuters. “Now, at least in this period when reserves are over-abundant, the way the Fed hopes to raise the federal funds rate will be primarily by raising

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Concur Technologies Inc (CNQR) reported 2009 fourth quarter earnings per share from continuing operations of 14 cents, matching the Zacks Consensus Estimate.  Concur reported total revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 of $64.8 million, driven by subscription revenue. Total revenue for the quarter was also up 13% from the year-ago quarter. Total subscription revenue was $62.9 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, up 13% compared to the year-ago quarter, and up 3% sequentially.  Bookings were exceptionally strong as the company signed more business in the fourth quarter than in any of the quarter in the company's history. Looking ahead, it expects the demand environment to remain solid throughout the fiscal year.  The long-term growth rate for both revenue and earnings is driven by new customer additions and cost selling of new services. The company signs more new business in the most ...

WASHINGTON - November 18, 2009 - Officials from EDP and EDP Renewables, the world's second largest generator of wind energy in terms of market capitalization

November 18, 2009
By Gary Grimes
Please understand that this article is about more than safeguarding your money; it’s about saving you headache and heartache. It’s about giving you peace of mind.

Before I explain, please allow me to ask a few questions:

Have you given much thought about the money in your banking accounts lately? Do you know if it’s safe?
Have you thought about what might happen if your bank fails?
Did you know you could be left in the lurch for days, weeks, even months before you get your money back from the FDIC?
What happens if the FDIC can’t cover your funds?
How do you find a safe bank to protect your deposits right now?

I hope you’ve given these questions some serious thought.

I have to be honest: These questions were about the farthest things from my mind until about a year ago, when …

Sprint Nextel (S) has expanded its fourth-generation (4G) wireless broadband network to two more US cities. The third largest US carrier has officially launched commercial services in San Antonio and Austin in Texas. The company’s 4G services now covers about 25 markets in the US, with plans to address more than 120 million people by the end of 2009.
 
Subscribers across the newly launched markets can now enjoy lightning fast mobile broadband experience by paying just $10 per month over their existing 3G wireless data plans. The 4G WiMax network offers up to 10 times faster network speeds than the existing 3G deployments. The download speeds enabled by the 4G WiMax network average 3−6 megabits per second (Mbps), with peak speeds exceeding 10 Mbps.  
 
Sprint offers its 4G service under the “Sprint 4G” brand and leverages the WiMax (a mobile broadband technology) network operated …

Baltimore — (TFN): If politicians would get their heads out of their re-election campaigns, they would not have to make hasty, thoughtless decisions that cost you and I money.

In the days following Obama’s inauguration, Washington quickly passed a wide set of tax reforms. Part of the legislation included a $400 tax break for the country’s working class and increased healthcare funding for the country’s poor, unhealthy children thanks to increased taxes on the tobacco industry.

It is no surprise neither measure has worked out as planned.

According to reports today, more than 15 million of us will have to pay back the $400 we saved in taxes over the last few months due to an error on Washington’s end.

I hope Uncle Sam doesn’t expect interest on his loan come April.

The news out of the tobacco industry helps us continue our discussion on regulations. The good and the bad.

Winston Churchill once

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POINT ROBERTS, WA and DELTA, BC - November 17, 2009 - www.Water-Stocks.com , an investor and industry portal for the water sector within www.Investorideas.com, features investing in water tools for investors following the sector.

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Lerner and Ethan Hill (GOOD.is): The new Nostradamus, October 1, 2009. Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the US Department of Defense certainly thinks so.

• Paul Lim (The New York Times): 10 years later, a much less expensive Dow 10,000, November 14, 2009. Investors may take some comfort now that the Dow Jones industrial average is back above 10,000 after slipping to around 9,700 at the end of October. But the return to 10,000 also serves as a bitter reminder that stocks have gone virtually nowhere, on balance, for more than a decade. Look a bit

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