Tell It To Al

Japan is now paying unemployed workers from  Brazil and Peru to go home.

The program only applies to Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese ancestry who received special visas to do manufacturing work when the country was enduring a labor shortage. With the auto industry in rapid decline, it no longer needs all these people.

So the Japanese government is offering $3,000 for workers and $2,000 for each family member to take a hike.

I’m trying to imagine what this program would look like if it were deployed in the U.S., paying only unemployed Caucasians to go back to, say, Europe.

Good riddance to GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Wagoner simply had no idea how much trouble he was  in at General Motors Corp. And therefore, no idea how to get out.

This was painfully obvious last summer when he boasted about GM’s cash position:

“We believe, under conservative market scenarios . . . we’re good through ’09. And we’ve got capability to work beyond that. . . .

Click here to read a column on Wagoneer that I wrote in November, and you’ll see why President Barack  Obama made the right move tossing Wagoneer to the curb.

(PHOTO: Rick Wagoneer, from GM’s website.)

The auto industry needs more money, unemploment is still skyrocketing, but at least laughs are getting cheaper I talk about it with 9News anchor Adam Schrager. Click here for a replay.

And click here to see my column about a sudden drop in the Cost of Laughing Index.

The two sure things, death and taxes, come in a handy little pack that fits right in your shirt pocket.

And now — with the new federal excise tax on tobacco taking effect on Wednesday — you’ll be taxed even more before you die.

The tax on a pack of cigarettes is going from 39 cents to nearly $1.01.  Continue reading…

All these big bank CEOs walked out of Barack Obama’s office on Friday talking about how THEY support HIM.

“We’re just in this together,” said Bank of America Corp. CEO Ken Lewis.

“No one in that room gave any indication at all that they were anything other than enthusiastic about supporting the president and this program,” said Freddie Mac CEO John Koskinen.

Sounds so magnanimous and even patriotic. But, at this point in the banking crisis, isn’t it the President who is supporting them?

Also attending, according to a White House press release, were: Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase; Ken Chenault, American Express; Ronald Logue, State Street; Robert Kelly, BONY-Mellon; Rick Waddell, Northern Trust; James Rohr, PNC; Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs; John Mack, Morgan Stanley; Vikram Pandit, Citigroup; John Stumpf, Wells Fargo; Cam Fine, Independent Community Bankers; Edward Yingling, ABA; Richard Davis, US Bank’ and Ken Lewis, Bank of America.

Can you imagine all these corporate welfare recipients standing together in one big, White House soup line?

And then after slurping free soup and they tell the cook he’s lucky to have their support.

(PHOTO: Ken Lewis, from Bank of America’s website.)

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern predicts we’ll pull out of the recession this year.

“The recession is likely to persist through mid-year and the initial stage of the recovery seems likely to be subdued,” Stern said Thursday.
 
“With the passage of time — as we get into the middle of 2010 and beyond — I would expect to see a resumption of healthy growth,” the central banker said.

Um. Gee. That’s really swell. But here’s what Stern said in March 2007 about mounting subprime debt possibly tanking the U.S. economy:

“I don’t see at the moment why that should happen … It seems unlikely to become big enough to have an impact on a $13 trillion economy.”

Continue reading…

OK, this has been bugging me for quite some time, so I’ll just put it out there and hope that someone will explain. 

If this Cialis stuff really works, why are the couples it in its logo and television commercials always in separate bath tubs?

Do you really need performance-enhancing drugs if this is how you intend to spend the evening?

Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio has now spent more time worrying about getting thrown in prison than he may actually have to spend in prison.

Nacchio has been the target of criminal and civil investigations since he was forced to step down in 2002. He was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading that date back to 2001. In 2007, he was sentenced to six years. He’s since been through the appellate court and is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.

Continue reading…

Can taxpayers expect to be ever repaid for the trillions they are borrowing to bail out the financial system?

U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kansas, just put the question to our embattled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a hearing on Capitol Hill. 

“There is no way we are going to get through this financial crisis without the government taking risks the markets can’t take,” Geithner said.

“Nobody in my position can stand before you and say there is no risk of loss to the taxpayer here. But we’re going to do our best to reduce  that risk of loss.”

So now it’s the role of government to take risks that free markets are determined to avoid?

Continue reading…

An attorney for the trustee of Bernard Madoff on Monday announced that another $75 million of the Ponzi schemer’s assets has been located in Gibraltar, bringing total assets found to more than $1 billion.

Madoff is now in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he fleeced thousands of investors of  as much as $50 billion. How much he actually stole remains a mystery since that $50 billion likely includes the gains investors thought they were receiving.

Still, $1 billion has got to be a record number for the amount of money left after a Ponzi scheme implosion. Good work, Bernie. No matter how it turns out from here, there’s still a place for you in Guinness.