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Friday, 3 Sep 2010

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Wells Fargo and Bank of America up by seven percen... » Led by Wells Fargo and Bank of America, financials were the worst perf...

Hurricane Earl 3 PM update – still tracking to sid... » Hurricane Earl keeps to the same path, speed and velocity, 80 mph at c...

Interview: Long Road Ahead For Sudan Debt Relief-W... » Sudan needs structural reforms to broaden its economy and encourage pr...

Sudan Referendum Body Agrees Post To End Deadlock » Sudan's referendum commission agreed on a key post on Thursday, ending...

The Desert of Forbidden Art » The Desert of Forbidden Art reveals masterpieces of avant-garde Russia...

Justin Wiscombe of Aurora charged with theft » Investigators have arrested an Aurora man following their investigatio...

Con artist Richard Earl Rupert wanted for fraud in... » A con artist with a long history of bilking seniors out of money has w...

Mahamed Aden Hassan wanted by Edmonton police for ... » EPS West Division Detectives have issued an arrest warrant for a man i...

Hurricane Earl noon update storm tracking Cape Cod... » Plan for the worst. Hope for the best.” PEI Government Earl i...

Hurricane Earl sideswipes NC headed for Massachuse... » Downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane Earl still packs winds of 105 mil...

Bleeding Light » Bleeding Light is a collection of ghazals tracing the steps of a woman...

Stefan Campagna charged with voyeurism in Ottawa » On August 31, 2010, the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault/Child Abu...

13 Toronto men charged in a $4 million fraud » Following a complicated, two year investigation with Industry Canada&r...

Bryan Valentine Gardner arrested for the murder of... » Investigators working out of the York Regional Police Homicide Unit ha...

Johnny Lindo charged with aggravated assault in Aj... » One man suffered a non-life threatening stab wound after an altercatio...

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EKOS poll shows lowest Conservative total since 2008 election

Friday, 03 September 2010 17:25

The new EKOS offers quite a bit of intriguing information. Here's a few things that stick out:

- LOWEST Conservative total since 2008 election.

- highest Liberal total since the spring, still not great, but much improved.

- noticeable dropoff for the NDP. Now polling in the single digits in Quebec,mirroring what Harris Decima found just last week. Registry?

- Greens actually 3.5% ahead of NDP in Quebec, only 4% behind in Ontario

- Liberals gaining in Ontario, at both the NDP and Conservative expense.

- Liberals at 39% in Ontario. Haven't seen this level for some time, represents big seat swing

- Conservatives losing more educated voters, base looking more and more like a "Deliverance" extra convention

- Ignatieff's app/disapproval numbers slightly improved over summer, more people have negative opinion of Harper. Ignatieff still has large "not sure" score, opinion hasn't cemented

- Layton's app/disapproval still best, but trendline bad, erosion on app, growing dis. Again, registry?

- Harper's app/disapproval getting worse.

Basically, it's hard to get terribly excited about the Liberals still below 30%. But, since everything is relative in politics, the appearance of momentum is there. What's important, the developing narratives find further oxygen, which can lead to more gains.

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CEOs - The More You Cut, The More You Get Paid

Friday, 03 September 2010 17:25

Yesterday, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a Washington-based think-tank with a liberal leaning released their report entitled "Executive Excess 2010:CEO Pay and the Great Recession". In case you weren't aware of IPS, here's how they describe their organization:

"IPS is a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. We work with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power."

On to the report.

IPS notes that America's CEOs had a pretty rough year in 2009. Over the past year, we have been reminded that CEOs have been suffering along with the proles; their compensation packages have suffered exactly the same as the rest of us during the Great Recession of 2009. In contrast, here's the first paragraph of the survey:

"Two years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, executive pay — after adjusting for inflation — is still running at double the 1990s CEO pay average, quadruple the 1980s average, and eight times the average executive pay in the mid-20th century."

From a chart in the report, we can see that the median annual CEO pay (adjusted to 2000 dollars) for the top 50 largest United States firms rose from $1.8 million in the years from 1980 to 1989, to $4.1 million in the years from 1990 to 1999, to $9.2 million in the years from 2000 to 2005 and dropped (oh the carnage!) to $8.5 million in 2009. By comparison, the wages of the sweaty masses have dropped and people are taking home less now than they did in the 1970s in inflation-adjusted dollars. To put the whole picture into context, in the 1970s, very few CEOs made over 30 times the salary of their average worker. In 2009, the CEOs of the top 50 U.S. companies had compensation packages that averaged 263 times the compensation received by their workers. Think about it. When you compare the purchasing power of your compensation, has it kept pace with your cost of living and, more importantly, how do your historical compensation package increases compare to those at the top of the pile where you work? At the same time, you could ask yourself how many CEOs do you see suffering with their 40 foot yachts and 8000 square foot mansions with 5 bathrooms?

What is even more annoying about this whole scenario is that, in 2009, IPS reports that the CEOs who slashed the number of their employees by the greatest number, took home 42 percent more compensation that the year's average chief executive pay for S&P 500 companies. To use the numbers from the report, the slasher CEOs average compensation totalled $11,977,128 compared to $8,419,411 for the average S&P 500 CEO. That's a $3,557,717 reward to the CEOs who helped some of their employees pack their boxes and take an extended unpaid vacation without benefits.

Let's look at who the report names, the companies they work for, their compensation and how many people these fine gentlemen tossed to the cold, hard streets of America. The layoff time period falls between November 2008 and April 2010. As in the report, these CEOs are named in order of compensation.

The Top of the Heap Award goes to Fred Hassan of Schering-Plough. His compensation, including a $33 million golden parachute after his company merged with Merck, totalled $49,653,063. Oh yes, and Schering-Plough/Merck turfed 16,000 employees. As an aside, the merged firm had profits of $12.9 billion in 2009, up 33 percent over 2008.

The First Runner Up Award goes to William Weldon at Johnson & Johnson. His compensation package totalled $25,569,844 up from $23 million in 2008 despite the fact that his company was faced with the recall of many of its products. During the time frame noted above, the company laid off 8,900 of its hard-working, but apparently surplus, employees.

The Second Runner Up Award goes to Mark Hurd at Hewlett-Packard. His compensation package for 2009 totalled $24,201,448 - perhaps he came in third because he only sent 6,400 employees packing during the time frame of the study. I guess the HP Board must have forgotten about the 24,600 job cuts announced in September 2008. According to some employees at HP, there have been far more layoffs than reported in the IPS study. In this particular case, as your mother always told you "what goes 'round comes 'round"; Mr. Hurd got turfed on August 6th, 2010 for misconduct. Unlike the rest of us who sweat when we work, Mr. Hurd's severance consists of $12.2 million in cash and $16 million in stock. I don't know about you, but I think I could live on that for a couple of years...well, maybe a year!

The Mr. Congeniality Award goes to Robert Iger, CEO of the apparently not-so-family-friendly Walt Disney Company. His compensation package totalled $21,578,471 and he sent 3,400 members of the Disney family on an extended (and permanent) vacation to the Magic Kingdom found on the streets of a city near you.

I don't want to bore you with any more names and numbers, but the next 6 companies on the list are IBM, AT&T, Wal-Mart, Ford, United Technologies and Verizon.

One section of the report that should not be missed is the chart showing the highest-paid executives at bailed-out companies like Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan etcetera. It's more than a bit nauseating when one sees that John Havens, CEO of the Clients Group (basically the head of Investment Banking) at Citigroup had a 2009 compensation package totalling $12,126,261 after Citigroup got $50 billion in bail-out funny money. That's $958,310 in bail-out money for each of the 52,175 Citigroup employees that were laid off during the time frame of the study.

What can we, the powerless proles, do about this situation? Here are three ideas:

1.) If you don't like what a company who falls into this category is doing to its employees or how they're rewarding their CEOs, simply do your business elsewhere. There's nothing like dropping sales and the resulting drop in profits to shake up an executive team.

2.) If you live in the United States, contact your government representatives at federal and state level and demand that no additional bail-out funds go to firms that lay-off staff at the same time as they continue to reward senior executives with obscene bonuses and stock options. If, in fact, the economy does descend into Part 2 of the Great Recession, the same corporations that came to the government with hats-in-hand looking for spare change will not think twice about coming back again. This is the time to ensure that Part 2 of the Great American Corporate Bail-out does not happen.

3.) If you hold stock in any company or companies, ensure that you read through their annual disclosure documents to educate yourself on their executive compensation practices. If enough shareholders forward resolutions regarding pay reforms ("say on pay") at annual meetings, eventually corporate leaders will get the message (hopefully). Make certain that you vote your proxies in favour of any shareholder-led resolutions that seek to limit executive compensation. If you chose not to vote or to vote with management, the system will never change.

I hope that you will take the time to read the entire IPS Executive Compensation Survey. While you may find your blood pressure rising as you read, at the very least, you will be a better educated investor and consumer.

Click HERE to read more of Glen Allen's columns.

References:

Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession

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Apple announces updates to iPod Touch and iPods

Friday, 03 September 2010 17:25

Steve Jobs does his best act as huckster and traveling salesman

Steve Jobs claims # 1 in the games market with iPod Touch

Yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs did a live announcement of Apple’s new or improved products for the fall. Some of his claims were so preposterous it’s hard to take him with more than a grain of salt.

The show had plenty of wow’s, ooh’s and aah’s for Apple fanboys but nothing as spectacular as a new product. Most of the announcements, like the iPod Touch upgrade, had been rumored for weeks.

Apple does a good job of keeping their product line fresh and giving their competitors a target to hit.

Say it ain’t so Steve

“Steve Jobs just told an audience that the iPod touch alone outsells Nintendo’s DS and Sony’sPlayStation Portable combined, worldwide.” Engadget

Industry stats say Nintendo has sold 132 million DS consoles, 74 million Wii and Sony has sold 145 million Playstations for a total of 351 game consoles from Nintendo and Sony.

Apple has sold only 125 million iPod Touch devices and not all of them are used for games. When you talk like that Steve, it’s hard to believe what you say.

What probably is making Steve Jobs nervous is Microsoft’s announcement it shipped Windows Mobile 7yesterday. Windows 7 will have built in Xbox 360 games and integration for multi-gamer play. Apple has not been a strong name in the game business so this is likely a shot across Nintendo and Sony’s bow but aimed at arch-enemy Microsoft. Microsoft Mobile 7 phones with Xbox 360 will ship on HTC, Samsung and a variety of other phones in time for the Christmas market.

Or Jobs might just be trying to create controversial media.

Most of the announcements were about enhanced devices at slightly lower prices.

What’s new and improved

The iPod Shuffle is smaller and costs $10 less, now $49. The iPod Nano has shrunk and still costs $149.

New iPod Touch with video and still camera

The iPod Touch has shrunk and added retina display and a screen side camera to allow for FaceTime video calls over wi-fi. A 720p HD video camera is new. The A4 processor from the iPhone 4 is in the iPod Touch and it costs a little more, $229 for the 8 Gb

iTunes 10, supposedly downloading today (not yet), has added something called Ping social networking. You will be able to share with your friends the music you listen to, trade gossip with bands, follow your favourite artists. Sounds like a new form of Facebook to me since people are already doing that on Facebook.

Apple TV has shrunk it’s set top box and is now selling for $99. It will offer 720p HD streaming rental of TV shows and movies. An episode will cost $0.99 and a movie rental $4.99.

Amazon.com also announced streaming TV and movies although their program is a purchase – you get to keep the video for watching over and over.

Apple TV will also support Netflix, the most popular video rental system.

Apple iOS is getting an upgrade to fix bugs and allow multi-tasking on the iPad.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network

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New phishing attacks with out of office and email change

Friday, 03 September 2010 17:25

Clever new attacks simulate emails with moderate level of important information but no alarming key phrases

People started getting phony emails this week that attempt to establish contact through benign messages. The older scams promise millions of dollars in lost money, sex, dates, or jobs.

This new round of phishing is different: the messages are low key and don’t contain anything that would raise alarm bells. Replying to get more detail can open up your system to phishing or trojan attacks.

Here are a few received in in the past 4 hours. None of them are from people I know but they do raise one’s curiosity which is the point: to hook you innocently into replying.

Email Change

Steve Rich has changed his email address due to excessive spam after having the same address for 15 years. Please, go to the website and contact the office via the contact directory on the top header, , (you will get general email address where you can request Steve’s new email) or, call the office at 973-458-1188 or Steve’s cell phone to get his new email address.

Outlook removed the links. The request is trying to verify your email and ip address.

Span arrest request from an unknown person

Nils Hansen here, I’m protecting myself from receiving junk mail. Please click the link below to complete the verification process. You have to do this only once.

or this one

Hello! Due to the horrible amount of junk email I get, I’m using a nifty web based app to make sure you’re a real human that I want to be in touch with, and not a spammer JERK. So, will you please click on the link provided to prove that you’re the real deal? Thanks! -Justin

Bounced mail

Sorry. Your message could not be delivered to:

julie hawkins,Fulton (The name was not found at the remote site. Check that the name has been entered correctly.)

It’s generally best to delete these messages or mark them as junk. One of the ones I got was so cleverly disguised Outlook refused to mark the send as spam.

Phishing attacks

In a phishing attack the spammer is trying to get at the least a verified email address through a return email. After that they may be looking for your computer ip, name, and other information sent in the email header. They would also like your name, address, and other information for identity theft or perhaps a window to attack your computer and insert a trojan. For more information see Wikipedia.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network

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Canada Fox News North Petition making gains

Friday, 03 September 2010 17:25

I've been watching this online petition today, which is growing at quite an impressive rate. The goal is 100000 signatures, and it's already a third of the way there. By my calculations today, it is growing by over 1000 people per hour so far today alone. Give it a look and consider signing and/or spreading it around. Apathy is the enemy:

Canada: Stop "Fox News North"

Prime Minister Harper is trying to push American-style hate media onto our airwaves, and make us all pay for it. His plan is to create a "Fox News North" to mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics. The channel will be run by Harper’s former top aide and will be funded with money from our cable TV fees!

One man stands in the way of this nightmare -- the Chairman of Canada's Radio and Telecommunications Commission Konrad von Finckenstein. And now, Harper is trying to get him out of his job. Sign the petition below to send a wave of support to von Finckenstein and forward this campaign to everyone -- we'll publish full page ads in Canadian papers when we reach 100,000:

To CRTC Chair von Finckenstein and PM Harper:

As concerned Canadians who deeply oppose American-style hate media on our airwaves, we applaud the CRTC's refusal to allow a new "Fox News North" channel to be funded from our cable fees. We urge Mr. von Finckenstein to stay in his job and continue to stand up for Canada's democratic traditions, and call on Prime Minister Harper to immediately stop all pressure on the CRTC on this matter.

THE LINK.

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