Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Mary1966]

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/micr ... 162629.asp

Microsoft Corp. will let laid-off employees who were overpaid severance keep the extra money, the company's senior vice president of human resources said Monday.

The company received heavy criticism over the weekend after it wrote to some of the 1,400 employees it laid off last month, stating that because of an administrative error it had paid them too much severance and now wanted the money returned.

In an interview, Microsoft Senior Vice President of Human Resources Lisa Brummel said the company erred by asking for the money back.

"Occasionally, we have clerical errors and we rectify that by paying them (more) if they were underpaid and asking them to pay back the money if they were overpaid," she said.

However, Brummel said that this was a "unique population."

"I don't think it's worthy of us asking them to make that payment back to us," she said.

Brummel said that she personally called 22 of the 25 affected former employees letting them know that they did not need to repay the money.

"They were quite happy, quite impressed that someone called them personally," she said.

She said the overpayments ranged from hundreds of dollars to $5,000 per employee.

Brummel said that she was notified of the situation over the weekend.

"If I had been alerted a little bit earlier, I would have taken the same action a bit earlier," she said.

An additional 20 employees were underpaid severance, and Microsoft has now paid them what they were owed.

Brummel said that alert systems had been put in place to try to ensure that the situation would not happen again.

"My hope is that no one makes a clerical error again, but that's silly to think it will never happen," she said.

In a statement, a Microsoft spokeswoman said, "This was a mistake on our part."

"We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner."

[docellis]

What if, instead of this bailout plan, the government forced all banks to cut all mortgage payments in half?

[Diddy]

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 the democratic congress. 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.

fixed

[GatewaySnayke]

That would be pretty remarkable since they've been in power since 2007 and were not responsible for any of the legislation that led to this point.

[Diddy]

That would be pretty remarkable since they've been in power since 2007 and were not responsible for any of the legislation that led to this point.

democratic efforts to stop reform of fannie mae, and freddie mac have had a huge part in whats happening now

[cpebbles]

Except that the reforms that Bush and co. wanted would not have done anything to prevent the crisis. They wanted to control the size of Fannie/Freddie, who were not particularly over-invested in subprime mortgages and limit their leverage, driving their business out into the private sector. Net result had they gotten what they wanted: More bailouts on Wall Street, less for Fannie/Freddie. Despite what GOP mouthpieces like to say, GSEs didn't cause the crisis. They were the first domino to fall because they were the one domino under the thumb of Congress.

And before you come back saying that the problem was the Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN, or whatever the hot-button issue on talk radio currently is, CRA-related mortgages made up an almost insignificant percentage of subprime mortgage and in fact the riskiest lending practices were far from government influence out in the deregulated free market that conservatives so revere.

[Arthur Dent]

[/youtube]

[Arthur Dent]

What if, instead of this bailout plan, the government forced all banks to cut all mortgage payments in half?

Why do you think that this would be helpful?

[Diddy]

Except that the reforms that Bush and co. wanted would not have done anything to prevent the crisis. They wanted to control the size of Fannie/Freddie, who were not particularly over-invested in subprime mortgages and limit their leverage, driving their business out into the private sector. Net result had they gotten what they wanted: More bailouts on Wall Street, less for Fannie/Freddie. Despite what GOP mouthpieces like to say, GSEs didn't cause the crisis. They were the first domino to fall because they were the one domino under the thumb of Congress.

And before you come back saying that the problem was the Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN, or whatever the hot-button issue on talk radio currently is, CRA-related mortgages made up an almost insignificant percentage of subprime mortgage and in fact the riskiest lending practices were far from government influence out in the deregulated free market that conservatives so revere.

really i think there is plenty of blame to go around to all sides, i just get tired of people saying everything is george bush fault. Hey i bought a house i cant afford it must be w's fault. theres to many different things going on to put the blame on one person yet some keep trying.

[dangerous]

Copper prices often move opposite to bond prices but nowadays copper moves opposite the piece of paper with George Washington's picture on it.