Stock intended to eventually earn taxpayers a profit as part of the Bush administration's massive bank bailout has lost a third of its value - about $9 billion - in barely one month, according to an Associated Press analysis. Shares in virtually every bank that received federal money have remained below the prices the government negotiated.

Most of the Treasury Department's investments since late October have been in preferred bank stocks, more than $180 billion worth, with investments in giants like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, and many small community banks. But the government also negotiated options to buy up to 1.2 billion shares of common bank stock that was valued at $27 billion.

Now, however, the value of that common stock is worth less than $18 billion. If the government exercised all its warrants to purchase the stock today, it would lose money on 51 of its 53 agreements. Taxpayers would be out $9.1 billion.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BAILOUT_RETURNS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

President-elect Barack Obama brought in nearly $750 million for his presidential campaign, a record amount that exceeds what all of the candidates combined collected in private donations in the previous race for the White House, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

Mr. Obama, who became the first major-party nominee to bypass public financing since the system began in the 1970s, spent more than $136 million from Oct. 16 to Nov. 24, the period covered in the report. By comparison, his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, who was limited to the $84 million allotted to him from the Treasury under public financing, spent $26.5 million during that time, according to his latest campaign finance report. Although Mr. McCain had $4 million left over, he had $4.9 million in debt, the report said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/politics/05donate.html

The United States of America, up for sale every 4 years.

how very enlightened.

According to the Labor Department, the number of unemployed workers rose by 251,000 in November. But the number of people who were outside of the labor force — that is, neither working nor looking for work — rose by much more: 637,000. These people aren’t counted as unemployed in the government’s statistics, because they are not looking for work. Many of them, presumably, have stopped looking for work because they didn’t think they could find a good job.

If you take a broader measure — one that tries to account for them — you see a darker picture of the labor market. The share of all men ages 16 and over who are working is now at its lowest level since the government began keeping statistics in the 1940s. The share of women with jobs has fallen almost two percentage points from the peak it reached in 2000; at no other point in the past 50 years has the share of employed women has fallen so much from its peak.

Even among those who still have jobs — who, of course, make up a huge majority of the population — the news wasn’t good. The number of people working a part-time job because they couldn’t find a full-time job rose by 621,000 last month. These people count as employed, but obviously many of them are struggling.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/workers-give-up/

fixing the environment can do for the economy what the computer revolution did in the 90s.

1. Given his decision not to accept public financing, Mr. Obama is counting on his bundlers to help him raise $300 million for his general-election campaign and another $180 million for the Democratic National Committee.

An analysis of campaign finance records shows that about two-thirds of his bundlers are concentrated in four major industries: law, securities and investments, real estate and entertainment. Lawyers make up the largest group, numbering roughly 130, with many of them working for firms that also have lobbying arms. At least 100 Obama bundlers are top executives or brokers from investment businesses: nearly two dozen work for financial titans like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup. About 40 others come from the real estate industry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/us/politics/06bundlers.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama%20bundlers&st=cse

2. Pelosi and Reid force Bush's $700+ corporate welfare bill through congress in spite of overwhelming public disapproval.

3. The $700 billion of taxpayers' money, in the plan suggested by Paulson, will buy enough of the toxic obligations to allow the companies to avoid bankruptcy. Not coincidentally, a major beneficiary of the scheme will be the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Paulson resigned as CEO of Goldman Sachs to become the Treasury secretary in 2006, having amassed a personal net worth of $700 million during his 32-year tenure at the bank (on average, $21.9 million per year).

There are hundreds if not thousands of Main Street banks and thrift institutions which played no part in the real estate securitization/derivatives game. Certainly the $700 billion could be made available to them instead, at low but positive interest.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/99707/the_$700_billion_bailout:_one_more_weapon_of_mass_deception/

4. President-elect Barack Obama brought in nearly $750 million for his presidential campaign, a record amount that exceeds what all of the candidates combined collected in private donations in the previous race for the White House, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

Mr. Obama, who became the first major-party nominee to bypass public financing since the system began in the 1970s, spent more than $136 million from Oct. 16 to Nov. 24, the period covered in the report. By comparison, his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, who was limited to the $84 million allotted to him from the Treasury under public financing, spent $26.5 million during that time, according to his latest campaign finance report. Although Mr. McCain had $4 million left over, he had $4.9 million in debt, the report said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/politics/05donate.html

Amazing coincidences or the most expensive political scam since the pentagon paid $300 for a screwdriver?