So I talked some junk in my previous post, “What your tax rebate will really buy” . It seems that despite my pessimism, the government is going to throw us a bone earlier than expected. So instead of paying $4.00 / gallon for regular gas you might be paying $3.75, but something is better than nothing. Heres an article from AP on yahoo announcing the goodish news.

AP
Bush says rebates going out Monday will boost economy
Friday April 25, 11:46 pm ET
By Tom Raum, Associated Press Writer 
Bush says tax rebates going out Monday will help people afford rising gas, food prices

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush said tax rebates will start going out Monday, earlier than previously announced, and should help Americans cope with rising gasoline and food prices, as well as aid a slumping economy. Democrats said they were glad the rebate checks were about to go out, but suggested that multinational oil companies were not among the businesses the stimulus package was originally designed to help.
     “Starting Monday, the effects of the stimulus will begin to reach millions of households across our country,” Bush said Friday in remarks on the South Lawn of the White House. Those first rebates will be directly deposited into people’s bank accounts.
     The Internal Revenue Service had been saying direct deposits wouldn’t start until next Friday. Bush said paper checks would begin going out on May 9, a week earlier than previously announced.

Finance.Yahoo.Com – Click Here for Complete Story

On February 8th I wrote about the Bush Tax Rebate and what people could expect. Bush signed H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 into law on February 13th. Being an inquiring mind I have sifted through and dug out the answers to questions I wanted answered. I have summarized them below. If you want to see the full IRS article because the information you need has not been listed, click here.

1 – Will I have to claim the rebate as income on my 2008 taxes.
      NO! The tax stimulus rebate will not count as income when you file your taxes in 2008, it will not be  used to increase your taxable income.

2 - Will my refund be reduced if I owe any current or back taxes?
      YES! In this case it would be treated like any other refund and would be first applied to any outstanding liabilities owed to the IRS.

3 – When will I get my rebate and how?
      The IRS hopes to begin distributing the stimulus rebate by May. People who recieve their refunds or make payments directly from their bank accounts will get the refund quickest. If you use direct deposit and chose to use the multiple account option , it will be allocated as you specified or your refund.

Bear Stearns once commended as one of the greatest Investment Firms on Wall Street will soon be absorbed by JPMorgan Chase. A price agreement has been reached and shares of Bear will be swapped for shares of JPMorgan. Shares of Bear Stearns traded for as high as $163 now trades for $10 a share. Only $6 more than when it went public 23 years ago. Getting caught up in the subprime mortgage madness they would soon come undone. In less than a year Bear Stearns would be forced to sell itself or file chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Ticker Symbol: BSC
Company Key Dates:
1923: The original company is founded by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity trading house.
1933: Bear Stearns opens its first regional office in Chicago, and Salim L. “Cy” Lewis–future chairman–is hired to direct Bear Stearns’s new institutional bond trading department.
1955: Bear Stearns opens its first international office in Amsterdam.
1965: Bear Stearns begins expanding retail operations in the United States and, over the next eight years, opens offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, and Boston.
1978: Alan “Ace” Greenberg succeeds Lewis as chairman.
1985: Bear Stearns forms a holding company called Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., goes public, and reorganizes from a brokerage house into a full-service investment firm.
1992: Company earnings double to over $295 million for best year in Bear Stearns’s history to date.
1993: James E. Cayne succeeds Alan Greenberg as CEO; Greenberg stays on as chairman.
1999: Bear Stearns agrees to pay $42 million to settle civil and criminal fraud charges in connection with its role as clearing broker for A.R. Baron.
2001: James E. Cayne succeeds Alan Greenberg as chairman.
2001: Bear Stearns completes construction of its world headquarters at 383 Madison Ave, New York, NY.
2003: Bear Stearns along with 9 other of the worlds top investment firms are forced to pay penelaties related to using their in house R&D release false or inflated claims to move stock prices in a favorable manor for the firm.
2006: The company had total capital of approximately $66.7 billion and total assets of $350.4 billion.
2007: Around June 2007 Bear Stearns pumps 1.6 Billion of capital in its Enhanced Leverage Fund and High-Grade Fund to keep them from closing.
2008: Bear Stearns agrees to be bought by JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, underwritten by $29 billion in special financing from the Fed.

Company History:
Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., the holding company that owns Bear, Stearns & Company, Inc., was created on October 29, 1985, as the successor to Bear Stearns & Company and Subsidiaries, a partnership organized in 1957. The partnership, in turn, was the successor to a company founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity-trading house. Headquartered in New York, Bear Stearns today is a full service brokerage and investment banking firm focused on three core areas: capital markets, wealth management, and global clearing services. The company maintains offices in major cities all over the globe.
Read more…

Who’s excited about the tax rebate? Not me. I was thinking about it and on the outside it seems nice, but upon further investigation , its just adding insult to injury. I am looking at potentially receiving $1,200. Not bad. Consider this; I have a 4 cylinder car, with a 13 gal. / 14 gal. tank. It costs me $46 to fill @ $3.29 per gallon. By the time May / June rolls around they are talking $4 + so now it is going to cost me $56 every two weeks. Heating and Electric run me another $150 or so per month. Then another $100 a month to keep my car insured so I can get to my job. Plus , $50 a month so my kids can watch Hanna Montana.

 So I am up to $415 and I have not even bought food to feed myself or my kids. The average family probably spends $100 to $150 per week on groceries since those have gone up substantially as well. So we will say $400, brining us to $815 per month.

Then there is rent , student loans , credit card debt, and so forth. I am not sure if this is what they had in mind when they wanted to stimulate the economy. I am not running out to buy a T.V. or put a deposit down on a new car. All the check is going to do , assuming we still get one, is help not play beat the bank for one month. I hope there are others out there working hard , and in a position to use it to have some fun. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through them.

AP
French Bank Trader Bet Tens of Billions
Friday January 25, 4:24 pm ET
By Angela Charlton, Associated Press Writer

French Bank Trader Was Dealing in Tens of Billions of Euros

PARIS (AP) — French bank Societe Generale said Friday a rogue trader who cost it more than $7 billion by making bad stock market bets had been gambling on a much larger scale — tens of billions of dollars of the bank’s money.

Photo by AP

As the depth of the risk to the bank became clearer, small shareholders questioned controls at Societe Generale and other leading banks, and France’s prime minister joined skeptics wondering whether a lone trader could have been fully responsible for such major damage.

The bank, France’s second-largest, apologized to shareholders in full-page newspaper ads after announcing the fraud, apparently the biggest ever carried out by one person. The news Thursday rattled an already jittery banking sector.

Finance.Yahoo.Com – Click Here for Complete Story

AP
Stocks Dive, Then Rebound After Fed Cut
Tuesday January 22, 6:23 pm ET
By Madlen Read, AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP)

The opening bell hadn’t even sounded on Wall Street when the Federal Reserve announced an emergency interest-rate cut. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 465 points including 300 in the first minute then rebounded to finish down a more bearable 128. The recovery Tuesday was a victory of sorts for a battered market. But a long-term comeback may depend on factors much more difficult to achieve a turnaround in the housing market and renewed confidence among U.S. consumers, who hold up most of the economy.

The alarming early drop in U.S. stocks followed the lead of markets abroad, where investors fled stocks and sent indexes plummeting on fears of a U.S. recession that could spread to other global economies.

By the close, the Dow had recovered to a loss of 128.11, or just over 1 percent, at 11,971.19. Before trading began, the Federal Reserve moved to slash its benchmark federal funds rate by 0.75 percentage points, to 3.5 percent. It was the widest cut since 1990, the beginning of what the Fed says is a comparable period in the way it handled the rate. The Fed cut the discount rate, the interest rate the Fed charges banks directly, to 4 percent, also a three-quarter-point cut.

Finance.Yahoo.com – Click for Complete Story

Found this article. Anyone think Salliemae is a buy? 12 month high is $58. Last I checked people have not stopped going to college, which means that there are going to continue to be loans. If they get someone who isn’t trying to cook the books and get back to basics, this could be a good long term hold.

AP
Sallie Mae Names Terracciano Chairman
Monday January 7, 3:44 pm ET
By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer 
Sallie Mae Names Anthony P. Terracciano Chairman, Albert Lord Named Vice-Chairman, CEO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Battered in recent months because of a failed buyout and higher borrowing costs, shares of Sallie Mae rose more than 10 percent Monday after the company named a banking industry turnaround specialist as its new chairman.
 
Analysts are not convinced, however, that new blood on its board is enough to resuscitate the nation’s largest student lender. Sallie Mae’s new chairman is Anthony P. Terracciano, who has been known as “Tony the Tiger” for his experience advising troubled banks and working on sales of some of them. The 68-year-old previously has served as president of First Union Corp., now Wachovia Corp., chairman and CEO of First Fidelity Bank Corp., president and chief operating officer of Mellon Bank, vice chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, and non-executive chairman of both The Dime Bank and Riggs National Corp.

Former Sallie Mae Chairman Albert L. Lord, who held that title for three weeks, has been appointed vice chairman and will remain CEO. Shares of SLM added $2, or 12 percent, to $18.67 Monday afternoon, and have traded between $16.35 and $58 in the past year.

Finance.Yahoo.Com – Click for Complete Story

The AP posted on Thu, Jun. 14, 2007

BERN, Switzerland – The Swiss National Bank said Thursday it will sell 276 US tons of gold reserves over the next two years.

The sale would fetch about $5.2 billion (euro3.9 billion) at current prices.

The proceeds will be used to increase Switzerland’s foreign currency reserves, national bank directorate member Thomas Jordan told reporters.

The share of gold in Switzerland’s currency reserves has risen to 42 percent from 33 percent since mid-2005 due to the increase in gold prices. Jordan said the sale would return the share of gold in the currency reserves to their previous level.

The sale will occur at regular intervals over period of two years to minimize the impact on the gold market. Once completed, the national bank will hold 1,040 metric tons (1,146 US tons) of gold.

Between 2000 and 2005 Switzerland sold 1,300 metric tons (1,433 US tons) of surplus gold reserves. The proceeds , about 21 billion Swiss francs , were distributed between the federal government and the country’s 26 cantons (states), who used the money to pay off debts.

Originally posted at philly.com