Blog

Bank of America (BAC), continuing a trend set by Citigroup and JPMorgan, is coming in a bit light on earnings:

—-

AP: Bank of America Corp. says it lost $5.2 billion during the final three months of 2009 as consumers struggled to make their mortgage and credit card payments.

The bank’s results, released Wednesday, followed the pattern of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., which reported continuing losses for their lending operations during the third quarter. The losses are raising concerns about the impact of credit problems on the economic recovery.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank set aside $10.1 billion to covered soured loans during the quarter, nearly 14 percent less from the previous quarter. But it also reported big losses in its mortgage and credit card businesses.

Bank of America said $4 billion of its loss came from the costs of paying back $45 billion in government bailout money.

The bank lost 60 cents per share, more than the 52 cents analysts were expecting, according to Thomson Reuters.

The bank’s stock was down 7 cents at $16.25 in pre-opening trading.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Citi Loses $7.6 Billion On TARP Repayment And $8.18 Billion Set Aside For Soured Loans
• Financial Stocks Getting Whacked After JPMorgan Earnings
• JPMorgan Earnings Blow Past Expectations, Revenue Looks Light, Consumer Lending Still Very Ugly

The tuners at VATH recently revealed details on their latest project, based on the new E-Klasse from Mercedes and offering both visual and performance enhancements for the German sedan. The VATH 2010 Mercedes E63 AMG is propelled by the standard engine that has been modified to output 605 hp and 690 Nm of torque.

This allows the vehicle to reach a top speed of 340 km/h and a 0 to 100 km/h sprint time of 4.1 seconds. The extra performance comes from special forged pistons, valves, sports cam … (read more)

Como nos tienen acostumbrados en iFixit, acaban de hacerse de un movil Nexus One que lo desarman completamente para mostrarnos que hay dentro. Quien lo hizo fue Walter Galan tardando 30 minutos para desmontarlo completamente.

Lo sorprendente es que al desarmarlo se puede ver que la pantalla táctil es fabricada por Samsung proveedor del Zune HD de Microsoft y el Bluetooth y chip wifi son de Broadcom que son exactamente los mismo que utiliza Apple en su Ipod Touch..

Algunas Imágenes

“The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a court ruling that invalidated former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.

Since Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction, activists in the United States and Europe have rallied in support of his claims that he was the victim of a racist justice system. Abu-Jamal has kept his case in the spotlight through books and radio broadcasts.

The appeals court upheld Abu-Jamal’s conviction but held his death sentence invalid. The Supreme Court earlier rejected Abu-Jamal’s appeal of his conviction…

The case is Beard v. Abu-Jamal, 08-652.” (source)

Anyone left out there that may still harbor some hesitation as to whether it was Mumia that killed Officer Daniel Faulkner in cold blood…only need read the transcripts. They even made a convert of one of my liberal brothers whose friends were all on the ‘Free Mumia bandwagon’…thankfully he did the reading.

Is it sad or amusing that the LA Times is calling a decision by the Supreme Court to keep the death penalty a setback for Mumia. Setback?

“This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero,” then-Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham said when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. “He is nothing short of an assassin.” (source)

(photo credit: reuters)

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

With photos.

Abbasid gold coins in Fayoum, two rock- hewn tombs in Saqqara and a four- cornered, mud-brick tower on the wall of Islamic Cairo are the latest antiquities discovered in Egypt.

Wherever a mission digs in Egypt it is obvious that they will come up with a treasure. An archaeological mission from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of Warsaw University excavating in a monastic building at Deir Al-Malah Monastery at Naqlun in Fayoum recently unearthed a decorated clay cup of Aswan production full of coins. The hoard consists of 18 gold coins and 62 fragments of coins, all of them provisionally dated to the Abbasid period.

Under the charred remains of a collapsed wall, archaeologists also uncovered a chandelier and a well-preserved oil lamp, both made of bronze.

“The whole treasure was found inside a room that seems to have been hastily abandoned during a fire,” said Woldzimierz Godlewski, head of the Polish mission. He added that the monastic complex of Naqlun was built in the early sixth century AD, while the area excavated this season dated to the seventh century and was destroyed by a massive fire in the eighth or at the beginning of the ninth century AD.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Who’s to Blame?
Nate Silver tries to explain the 31-point swing in the Massachusetts vote: from Barack Obama’s 26-point victory in the 2008 presidential election to Martha Coakley’s 5-point loss last night.

He blames 10 points on the national environment, citing generic ballot tests that show “the Democrats’ position has worsened by a net of 10 points since November 2008.”

Another 11 points of blame “should be assigned to Coakley. That represents the difference between the 58 percent of vote that she received at her high-water mark in the polls to the 47 percent she received on Election Day.”

The remaining 10 points are spread out “as evenly as possible, giving 3 more points to Coakley, 3 more points to the national environment, and 4 to Massachusetts-specific special contingencies.”

Conclusion: “If you follow through on the math, this would suggest that Coakley would have won by about 8 points, rather than losing by 5, had the national environment not deteriorated so significantly for Democrats. It suggests that the Democrats would have won by 9 points, rather than losing by 5, had the candidate been someone other than Coakley.”

How the Vote Shifted in Massachusetts
Charles Franklin stayed up late crunching numbers and found that Scott Brown’s (R) vote totals in Massachusetts were essentially identical, in aggregate, to those Sen. John McCain received in the 2008 presidential election.

But it was a very different picture for Martha Coakley (D). Her best town gave her only about 80% of Barack Obama’s vote. Even in the towns she won, she was dramatically underperforming the Obama vote.

What Now on Health Care?
With political strategists in Washington and Massashusetts pointing fingers at who is to blame for yesterday’s U.S. Senate loss, the Washington Post notes “the real debate for the Democrats will be how to proceed. The most immediate problem is what to do with the health-care bill. Democrats from the House and the Senate have been negotiating furiously, trying to harmonize competing bills. Now the issue is whether they can quickly agree on how to pass a bill and whether they face a public backlash by doing so.”

The Wall Street Journal notes the loss “sparked what could become a bitter fight between liberals who urged Democrats to keep on course with health care, and centrists who argued the party needed to focus on the economy. Some of the latter suggested the party drop its health-care overhaul altogether.”

According to The Hill, White House officials “would prefer the House pass the Senate health care bill without changes, which would obviate the need for a second Senate vote on the legislation.”

“The problem is that many liberal lawmakers in the House don’t like the Senate bill. To compensate for this opposition, there is a proposal that the House would then pass a second measure making changes to the Senate bill. That measure could then pass through the upper chamber at a later date under special budgetary rules known as reconciliation, which allow legislation to pass with a simple majority.

Roll Call notes that discussions among Democratic leaders “were expected to get more serious today, as the reality of the Massachusetts defeat takes hold.”

One of the Most Common Chemicals Used in Modern Life Is Now Being Seen as a Health Threat
Damning new evidence has even the FDA worried about the impacts of BPA in consumer products, especially those for infants and children.

Damning new evidence has even the FDA worried about the impacts of BPA in consumer products, especially those for infants and children.

Obama Confidant’s Spine-Chilling Proposal to ‘Cognitively Infiltrate’ Conspiracy Theorist Groups
Recent paper by Obama adviser Cass Sunstein proposes bizarre methods to stamp out "false conspiracy theories," including taxing the people who engage in them.

Recent paper by Obama adviser Cass Sunstein proposes bizarre methods to stamp out "false conspiracy theories," including taxing the people who engage in them.

Sen. Sherrod Brown’s Recipe to Stop the Economic Hemorrhaging: Fix Our Manufacturing Policies
An interview with Sherrod Brown, the progressive senator from Ohio who calls for unleashing America’s economy to build wind turbines and solar panels.

An interview with Sherrod Brown, the progressive senator from Ohio who calls for unleashing America's economy to build wind turbines and solar panels.

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)

On Monday morning on the Giza plateau workers were busy removing sand from the newly discovered tomb of Idu, overseer of the construction of the Great Pyramid. They were surrounded by a media scrum, gathered around admiring their work, taking photos and trying to glimpse what has been uncovered.

During routine excavation and cleaning at the plateau an Egyptian archaeological mission, led by Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), stumbled upon what is believed to be a collection of early Fourth Dynasty tombs belonging to workers who built Khufu and Khafre’s pyramids.

“The tombs belong to the late fourth and fifth dynasties (2649-2374 BC),” says Hawass, who argues that they constitute one of the most important discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries, shedding light on the early period of the Fourth Dynasty and contradicting assertions that the Pyramids were built by slaves.

“These tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates that these people were not slaves. If they had been they would not have been allowed to build their tombs beside their king’s,” said Hawass.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Israel Threatened To Hit West Bank Hard If Abbas Did Not Stop Goldstone Report
Remember that amazing moment when President Abbas asked the United Nations to defer consideration of the Goldstone Report that found that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. Now we know why Abbas did it. “The request by Palestinian President Mahmoud…


Israel – United Nations – Mahmoud Abbas – President of the Palestinian National Authority – Goldstone Report

Dems Must Step Up to Majority Governance after the Massachusetts Mess
My husband Bill and I were at our Cambridge polling place at 7am this morning, as a steady stream of voters marked the simple ballot. People at this solidly Dem precinct had determination on their faces, but the mood was…


Massachusetts – Cambridge Massachusetts – United States – Politics – Scott Brown

Will the Real Reinhold Niebuhr Please Stand Up?
Despite having been a religion major in college, I won’t try to dissect Joseph Loconte’s interpretation of Reinhold Niebuhr’s theology over in AEI’s magazine, The American. But the ways Loconte blatantly contorts President Obama’s foreign policy intentions cry out for…



Foreign policy – Reinhold Niebuhr – Barack Obama – United States – American Enterprise Institute

U.S. Chamber of Commerce celebrates its ?influence? over Massachusetts Senate race.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the right-wing lobbying giant, is celebrating its power to “influence” the race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown to fill the seat of the late Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy. In a blog post, the Chamber promoted the television ads it ran to portray Scott Brown as a friend […]

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the right-wing lobbying giant, is celebrating its power to “influence” the race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown to fill the seat of the late Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy. In a blog post, the Chamber promoted the television ads it ran to portray Scott Brown as a friend of business for supporting the continuation and extension of Bush-era tax cuts. However, the Chamber also discussed its real priority of killing health care reform, saying Brown’s election would “allow Republicans to block legislation, including health care reform opposed by the Chamber.” This barrage of conservative corporate cash is the beginning of a $100-million-dollar campaign to block reform:

The Chamber’s efforts in support of Brown’s Senate bid is a preview of what will be a massive effort to support pro-business candidates in November’s congressional midterm elections. In his annual State of American Business speech on January 12, Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue promised the “largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly hundred-year history.”

“A Brown win in today’s special election,” the Chamber says, “could pay immediate dividends by throwing into question the future of health care reform legislation pending in Congress.” A large part of Chamber’s efforts have been underwritten by nation’s biggest health insurers, which were “quietly pumping big money into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying the major health reform bills moving through Congress.” The funds were solicited by America’s Health Insurance Plans — the lobbying arm of the insurance industry — and funneled to the Chamber.

Bernanke invites ‘full review’ by GAO of Fed’s AIG bailout
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Tuesday that he would “welcome a full review” by government investigators into the federal bailout of the troubled insurance giant American International Group.

Profile of Scott Brown, victor in Massachusetts Senate race
Tuesday’s upset Republican victory in Massachusetts may well have less to do with ideology and more to do with old-fashioned retail politics: Scott Brown was a charismatic candidate with a old truck, an intriguing narrative and a promise to shake every voter’s hand.

Senate debate on debt limit to begin Wednesday, aide says
The Senate will open debate Wednesday — as expected — on a plan to raise the nation’s debt limit, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday afternoon.

Debido al 45 aniversario de la puesta a la venta del primer GT350 de Shelby, la marca ha aprovechado dicho aniversario para presentar su último Ford Mustang, el Shelby Mustang GT350 a un precio de 23.400€ .

Realmente ese no es su precio final si no que debemos comprar por nuestra parte el Mustang y llevarlo posteriormente a las instalaciones de Shelby para que le realicen las modificaciones pertinentes, entre ellas el aumento de su potencia hasta los 500 CV.

Estéticamente la verdad es que me ha gustado mucho ya que han sabido jugar con los colores para darle un aire fresco al modelo. A continuación os dejo con una galería de imágenes:

[View with PicLens]

Related posts:

1. Ford Mustang con un motor 5.0 V8
2. Shelby GT500, Kit Super Snake
3. Ford Mustang Iacocca, spot publicitario

Aunque no será hasta el Salón de Ginebra cuando podamos verlo en vivo ya tenemos las imágenes oficiales del nuevo Mazda 5, un monovolumen de 7 plazas con unas líneas bastante atrevidas, basta con fijarse en el par de líneas onduladas que recorren los flancos.

Como características de este nuevo modelo podemos adelantar que habrá una nueva línea con un motor 2.0 DSI de inyección directa y caja manual de 6 velocidades.

El nuevo Mazda alardea de haber reducido sus emisiones de CO2 en un 15% respecto con la antigua versión.

[View with PicLens]

Related posts:

1. Mazda 2, primeras imágenes oficiales
2. Mazda 5 presente en el Salón de Ginebra
3. SKY-G y SKY-D, nuevos motores de Mazda

Obama Has Done a Good Job So Far
Fred Hiatt, Washington Post
On Wednesday one year will have passed since President Obama's inauguration. Much of the tidal wave of assessments has been negative: Falling poll numbers. Unfulfilled promises. Disappointed supporters, disillusioned independents, angry opponents. He's been too cool or too egotistical, too left-wing or not left-wing enough. And if voters repudiate his policies in a special Massachusetts Senate election on Tuesday, as is quite possible, the tidal wave will become a tsunami.So before that happens, I'd like to interrupt the anniversary-bash-Obama-fest with a simple proposition:…

Public’s View of Obama at Year One, in Context
David Paul Kuhn, RCP
Barack Obama's first year anniversary is this week. Obama will cross that threshold with his public standing ranking in the lower third of the eleven presidents since World War II. The most striking fact, looking back at Obama's first year approval rating, is the rate of his decline. In the post-war era, only Gerald Ford's public standing plummeted more than Obama's. Below is Obama's approval rating in historical context, as well as a sense of what his persona evokes in the American mind today. Receive news alerts  David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political…

Scott Brown Wins Mass. Senate Seat in Epic Upset
Johnson & Sidoti, AP
GOP's Brown wins Mass. Senate seat in epic upset By GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writers AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty Watch Related Video Raw Video: Coakley Confident As She VotesRaw Video: GOP's Brown Votes in MassachusettsGOP's Brown wins Mass. Senate seat in epic upset Voters show independence in Mass. Senate race Mass. secretary of state dismissed vote problems Analysis: Mass. race exposes public's anger, fears Mass. voters brave snow, rain in Senate race Obama aide says Brown ran good race for Senate …

Copenhagen: Not done yet

The dust has now settled on the massive disappointment that was the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. We’ve had a break, got our breath back, and we’re looking at how to move forward with this campaign in what is now a vital year. (More on that next week).

Here’s a quick thing that you can do to kick off the campaigning year. The Copenhagen Summit “noted” the last minute agreement that was reached between the US, China et al but, like most of the important decisions, the detail was left out.

A deadline was set for filling in the blanks, like how much emissions should be cut by. We want the European Union (EU) to offer a carbon emissions cut of 30% on 1990 levels, and to move to 40% as quickly as possible.

Any casual observer can see that the whole climate change process needs reinvigorating after the hammering it took at Copenhagen. The EU needs to make this pledge to inject some momentum into the process and send a message that this year, they mean business.

So, let the EU know that you want some real carbon emissions cuts this year, so we get the fair, ambitious and binding deal we’re still waiting for.

Baked Brie with rosemary, yummy broccoli calzones, and a great little mug in today’s Delicious Links.

Read Full Post