Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Jocephus]

Wow. American Express must be getting desperate. In a bid to RID itself of customers, Amex will give you a $300 prepaid credit card if you cancel your account. According to CreditMattersBlog, it is offering the deal under the guise of enabling customers to "simplify" their finances.

For more news on American Express, check out this page on Consumerist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/2 ... 69168.html

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I think the Dow has dropped every day since the stimulus package was signed and is down about 10% in less than a week. That is good work right there.

[sighyoung]

Yeah, I thought the insolvency of the banking system would have been fixed already.

[Radbird]

Microsoft seeks money from laid-off workers

The company is asking some laid-off employees for a portion of their severance back, saying an administrative glitch caused the software maker to pay them too much.

[GatewaySnayke]

I think the Dow has dropped every day since the stimulus package was signed and is down about 10% in less than a week. That is good work right there.

Obama's not to blame: The market is reacting to long-term economic conditions. If you want someone to blame, it should be George Bush. The conditions are the result of his policies. Or, if you don't want to blame an administration, just look at the financial sector—a big component of the Dow Jones industrial average. Two years ago it accounted for a third of total corporate profits. This year it has no profits and its share prices are cratering, hence the Dow is down. Bank stocks may trade based on what Obama has been proposing, but those have lost so much value they're not responsible for throwing off the entire Dow. Sure, Obama's policies may not have convinced the market that recovery is around the corner, but they haven't even been put into practice yet.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

How did Obama get brought into this?

I was just commenting on the piss poor performance of the market the past week. Apparently Wall Street didn't like that stimulus package or something else triggered this drop.....

I further don't understand the banking solvency issue. That has been around for months now. Is Wall Street late to the party and just now dropping because of it?

[TheoSqua]

Wow. American Express must be getting desperate. In a bid to RID itself of customers, Amex will give you a $300 prepaid credit card if you cancel your account. According to CreditMattersBlog, it is offering the deal under the guise of enabling customers to "simplify" their finances.

For more news on American Express, check out this page on Consumerist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/2 ... 69168.html

I might have to do this.

[Jocephus]

NEW YORK — Wall Street has turned the clock back to 1997. Investors unable to extinguish their worries about a recession that has no end in sight dumped stocks again Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 251 points to its lowest close since Oct. 28, 1997, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index logged its lowest finish since April 11, 1997.

All the major indexes slid more than 3 percent. The Dow is just over 100 points from 7,000.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/2 ... 69257.html

[Arthur Dent]

A.I.G.'s success in the wealth destruction business has been nothing short of spectacular.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... nment-aid/

The American International Group, the battered insurance giant that is now effectively majority-owned by the federal government, is in talks to receive more government aid as it prepares to record another giant loss.

A.I.G. could take as much as another multi-billion dollar hit when it reports earnings during the next week. It expects to disclose losses across a wide variety of holdings, from commercial real estate to credit default swaps, the private contracts that helped lead it to the brink last fall.

Among the plans being discussed include swapping some or all of the $40 billion in preferred shares held by the government into a form of capital A.I.G. can use to ward off collateral calls from its trading partners. The government has already lent A.I.G. $150 billion.

...

[KyCardinalFan]

Microsoft seeks money from laid-off workers

The company is asking some laid-off employees for a portion of their severance back, saying an administrative glitch caused the software maker to pay them too much.

I heard about that, I couldn't help but wonder if that software was a Microsoft product.

I didn't click your link, but I saw it on CNN. They were saying that Microsoft won't say how much was overpaid or how much individuals will have to pay back. My initial reaction is to let them have it. I mean, you laid them off, paid them severence and now are asking for some of it back? That should just be a loss. But I guess it really depends on what kinds of numbers we're talking about here. It is outrageously obvious there was an error, or are we talking a few hundred a person? Don't kick these people while they're down.