I’ve been on this minor rant for a few months against credit scores and some of the things financial advisors have been telling people in regards to making sure their credit scores don’t fall by cutting up credit cards. They’re telling people not to do this, even as banks have been jacking up interest rates on everyone, including people who had these great credit scores.

On Monday, the Federal Reserve proved it, presenting statistics that showed around 50% of all banks had jacked up interest rates on people whose credit scores were good. Around 40% of banks said they were imposing higher fees, and many others mentioned they were raising the credit score limit in deciding who was going to get new credit cards.

Now, that 50% doesn’t necessarily sound bad until you realize that the 12 largest banks in this country are responsible for issuing 80% of the credit cards. That means that the majority of people in the country have been hit with these things, and that’s a phenomenal number.

Another study, done by the Pew Charitable Trusts, also showed that some of the laws that have already been approved and implemented have been ignored by many of these banks. They didn’t highlight what these laws were, however.

Of course, the banks say they need the money, and that all this legislation is bad for consumers because it will restrict how much credit they’ll eventually give out. Please; these are the same people who have been preying on college kids, and have actually given credit cards to children and animals without realizing it. Their practices have been questionable for decades, and in reality, they were probably giving credit to people who shouldn’t have had it, or at least giving lots of credit to people who shouldn’t have had it.

I’ll even own up to that one. I had a $10,000 credit card when I was 28 years old and not making more than $20,000 at the time. And I didn’t ask for it; not really, anyway. I put in for a card that said it would give me $2,000, and this card shows up with this high amount. Lucky for me, I didn’t ever get close to that, but I could have.

So, fewer people will qualify for credit they shouldn’t have had; trust me, I understand how that works, and we all should be ready to accept it. It’s not going to hurt everyone in the way they think it might. Stores will still issue their credit cards with small balances, and banks will probably issue cards with smaller balances also. Cards might start having fees, and might require larger payments up front. It works out better that way, because people will be able to pay off their balances quicker, and that means less in interest being built up on their accounts. Banks have counted on this one for so long that they also forgot that none of that money was real.

At the same time, credit card debt is down almost, so banks don’t even have any of that money to hope to collect on. People are learning their lessons, and spending less. That’s dropped the number of credit cards in the last 12 months 75 million, but still leaves more than 550 million credit cards out there; at least Visa, Mastercard and Discover anyway.

I have no sympathy for the banking system. They’ve been taking advantage of us for years at this juncture. I remember when I was a kid being able to get a savings account that paid a lousy 2% a year. Now try getting one that pays more than .5% a year, without hitting you up with a $4 monthly fee.

That’s progress for you. But at least now you understand why I’ve said that credit scores are worthless. Some are going to debate me on this one, but it’s what I believe, and I’m not changing my mind one bit.

And don’t even get me started on the real estate market and credit scores!

There are now 120 banks that have been closed this year, and that total hits what I had predicted, but not written, back in April when it looked like we were averaging close to 10 closings a month. Still not close to the record, but this isn’t good stuff. It’s the most bank closings since 1992; are we sure that the Conservatives way of handling finances is the way to go?

Anyway, once again I’m not going to name all the banks, but I am going to talk about the main bank, which was United Commercial Bank of San Francisco. This was the largest bank of the group, with ties to China and marketed to the Chinese and Chinese American community. They had 63 branches, which will be taken over by East West Bancorp Inc. They had assets of over $11 billion dollars. East West now becomes the second largest independent banking system in California; congratulations to them.

Of course, the states represented with this week’s closings have all had banks closed earlier in the year. Other the California, banks in Georgia, Missouri, Michigan and Minnesota were closed this weekend, which ended up costing the FDIC $1.5 billion; not a small chunk of change. Georgia has had 21 banks close this year, and one of the oddest things about it is that only one bank has assumed more than one of these systems, that being Ameris Bank of Moultrie, GA, which assumed two. Three of the banks don’t have a name listing who assumed their assets; that’s also strange.

Actually, just for clarification, one bank system did actually assume more than one bank, but all those banks were affiliated, with just one bank in each county, and all six, closed on the same day, were assumed by State Bank and Trust Company of Pinehurst, GA. Still, with the problems Georgia has had, it’s odd that so many other banks were able to assume one branch, though, again for accuracy, two of those that assumed these banks were out of state organizations.

So, 120 and counting, with 7 weeks to go. Do you think it will hit 150?

One day after the announced new unemployment rate finally cracked 10%, ending up at 10.2%, Congress did the right thing, in the right manner, by passing an extension of unemployment benefits for at least an extra 14 weeks for everyone, and in states hit the hardest up to 20 weeks.

The Senate actually passed this bill with a vote of 98-0; now there’s true bipartisanship! The thing I can’t figure out is who didn’t vote, since there’s supposed to be 100 votes, but I’m not going to search all that hard for it.

The estimate is that there are more than 15 million people out of work by now, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. It’s at its highest level in 26 years. Even with the number we have, we all know that more people are actually unemployed, and we haven’t even tried to count the underemployed, those folks who have taken jobs that pay well below what they were used to being paid before.

So, this isn’t a great way to start the week, but at least I didn’t talk about the new bank closures; that’s coming next.

Microsoft announced that it was cutting 800 more jobs on top of the 5,000 it had already announced earlier this year. They also announced that they had already reached that 5,000 number, although it was supposed to stretch into the middle of 2010.

Once again, though, a company announces layoffs and their stock price went up, in this case going up $1.20 on the day. And, it seems, by hitting their layoff target early, they were able to announce an unexpected nice profit and quarterly sales figure that also helped the stock price go up.

My mind wonder whether this is really good timing, being on the heels of the new release of Windows 7, which is supposed to make everyone forget about Vista (unfortunately, I have Vista, and it’ll be awhile before I upgrade to anything). I see how investors view things, but if I’m the consumer, it makes me wonder if these people have no real confidence in their new product, and it makes me want to go in a different direction and either stick with XP (if I was smart) or finally make the move to an Apple.

I guess these are the things some people consider as good business decisions. It might be, for all we know. Maybe even Microsoft is bloated in areas they’ve now realized they didn’t need so many people. They still employ more than 90,000 people after all. It just seems like strange timing to me.

Yesterday the House passed the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 by a vote of 331-92 vote Wednesday, with a number of Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the bill. It was about time someone decided to look out for we, the people, and many of the things credit card companies have been doing to us.

That anyone would vote against this bill is almost criminal, in my eyes, but 91 people did, and their reasoning is supposedly that it will hurt the availability of credit. As a matter of fact, supposedly that’s what the fight is going to be in the Senate, where this bill supposedly will have a problem getting through.

This is the most ridiculous thing; how can this not pass? As it is, almost no one is getting any credit right now anyway. More people are being turned down for credit as the debate about credit scores and the tightening qualifications in getting loans has been a topic for awhile. Few people are getting home loans; few people are being qualified for new credit cards, even though those bad boys are suddenly showing up at least every other day at my house. Having interest rates being jacked up, balances being charged and balances being drastically dropped that put us over the limit almost immediately when we were encouraged to move our money to these new cards, and being told to pay up or get out… that’s fair? In some cases, cards have just been closed without warning.

Here’s the deal, Washington politicians who voted against this bill. The rest of us aren’t rich. We don’t have the millions of dollars you have to even live calm lives, let alone spend to get elected to a job that pays less than 10% of your net worth so you can feel good about yourselves by trying to make us believe you have our best interests at heart. This is a no-brainer; protect us, pass this bill, and let’s move on.

If anyone disagrees with me that this is a bad bill, please try to convince me why. But be warned; it’s not going to be easy.

Jobs. Everyone’s talking about them lately. Depending on who you decide to listen to, things are either starting to improve or they’re not.

A report came out saying job losses are drastically slowing down. Private sector job losses were around 203,000 for October, higher than expected but lower than it’s been on a monthly basis. Unemployment sits at 9.8% still, although it’s predicted that, after calculations, the number will push up to 9.9%. That’s still pretty high.

Also, last week President Obama announced that the stimulus package saved jobs, mainly in education, and created or saved around 640,000 jobs. The Wall Street Journal reduced that figure by 20,000 later on. The Republicans immediately challenged both, saying there’s no way to calculate jobs either created or saved like that. I’m trying to figure this one out also; how would they know? The administration said the report wasn’t 100% accurate, and it seems to be based on questioning people who got money from the stimulus package, which includes some folks you wouldn’t have thought would have gotten money; so be it.

Then we follow both of the above up with the story that Johnson & Johnson is going to be cutting around 8,000 jobs to cut costs, around $1.7 billion worth. I didn’t check to see if their stock price went up because of the announcement. That figure is around 7% of its entire workforce; yeah, I’d say that’s significant. It was around December last year when suddenly we started hearing of all these companies laying off high numbers of people. Are we about to experience something like that again?

Depends on some factors. One, the fallout from the two commercial loan giants that just declared bankruptcy; will they be the only ones (no)? Two, did most of the companies that needed to lay off high numbers of employees last year get it out of the way? Three, will this retail year show that some people believe the recession is over, or do many of us trust that just yet?

And, of course, more people are continuing to fall off unemployment and still not have jobs, which means there will be a high number of under counted people unemployed. There’s really nothing to do about that one.

Even President Obama said Monday that more job losses were coming, and that the pace to create new jobs is going to lag; I guess that answers that.

Wow, things are moving fast. Just a week after 8 banks were closed in one week, 7 of them in one day, the federal government broke its own record by closing 9 banks this past Friday. This isn’t anything anyone can be happy about, but it is what it is.

Grouped in with this group was California National Bank, the 4th largest bank to be closed this year, with more than $7 billion in assets. That’s barely more than Corus Bank, which was closed in September right on that $7 billion mark.

The banks that were closed were all in states with real estate woes. And, oddly enough, only 4 states were affected. Three of the banks closed were in California, three in Texas, two in Illinois, and one in Arizona.

For once, I don’t have anything more to share. Commercial lenderes are in trouble, banks are in trouble,… I think that says it all.

On the heels of Capmark Financial Group filing for bankruptcy last week, this week saw another super huge commercial real estate lender file for bankruptcy.

This time it’s CIT Group, a lender to way more than 100,000 small and medium sized businesses. This is one of the largest companies in history filing for bankruptcy, yet at the same time, it looks like they also already have a plan in place to start paying creditors and get out of bankruptcy by the end of the year.

Of course, it doesn’t help the rest of us to know that the federal government gave them $2.33 billion to help bail them out of trouble, and that it didn’t work. Seems that the record for bailing out banks and lenders didn’t work out all that well. At its peak in 2007, CIT’s shares were trading at around $60 each; now they’re trading at 72 cents, barely above the cutoff.

The thing about these people is that, by filing bankruptcy, oddly enough it’s going to force some of their creditors to pay them money, while shedding around $10 billion in debt. The company is still giving out loans, and plans on giving out loans, while it’s in bankruptcy, as some of their subsidiaries are doing well enough to operate on their own. I have to admit that this seems reckless and conceited, and it may explain why the current CEO is on his way out, having resigned to be effective at the end of the year.

That’s two big commercial real estate lenders in two weeks. I’m afraid of what’s still to come. Now, are you still believing these people who are saying the economy is improving?

How strange. Just yesterday I wrote and said not to get too excited over home prices rising, and the next day a report comes out saying sales of new homes dropped drastically. Then the Commerce Department comes out with a report saying that new home sales dropped 3.6% in September, the first decrease since March, though overall it’s up 22% since January.

The reasons for this are speculated to be:

* the pending end to the $8,000 tax credit

* the increase of more homes in the West and South being foreclosed upon

* the fact that it’s taking longer for new home owners to be approved because of worries that some of them could turn into the same bad risks that have helped bring the real estate market crashing down (which, in my opinion, isn’t the fault of buyers, but sneaky lenders)

* the glut of foreclosed homes, which offers a lot of good deals versus building new homes

The last stat there is a big one, as the sale of pre-existing homes went up 9% in September. That actually makes sense in my mind, and the only reason I’m not surprised that figure isn’t higher is because unemployment is still on the rise.

At the same time, foreclosures are starting to slow down, which I still say has more to do with the fact that there are fewer homes left to be foreclosed upon in those areas that were the hardest hit, rather than believing the economy is getting better. California, Florida and Nevada are still leading the way in the number of foreclosed homes, with Las Vegas at the top of the list. But their numbers are starting to ease some, as the foreclosures in large cities is slowing down. Yet, up the street from Las Vegas, Reno shows an 80% increase in foreclosures, which doesn’t surprise me after spending a month there at the end of last year.

New on the list is Boise, ID and Provo, UT, which showed jumps in foreclosures of 141% and 120% respectively. Both areas are being hit hard by unemployment now, which is the major cause of all these foreclosures in the first place.

I implore the federal government to put another freeze on foreclosures like they did earlier in the year. Someone really needs to take a look at this, and force banks to work with some of these homeowners to keep their homes. This has to be stopped as quickly as possible.

It was reported that home prices had gone up for three months in a row, after being in a decline for so long. Actually, home prices had been up in some areas and not in many others, but they seem to be going up in most major American cities, at least for now.

Home prices through August have shown a gain of 1% from July in 20 major cities, but they’re still down more than 11% from August of last year. What’s bringing the number down is the collapse of home prices in cities like Las Vegas, which declined even more in August, and is down 56% in value from the same time last year.

So, what drove this increase in home prices? The $8,000 tax credit is getting a lot of, well, credit for this mini-boom. And that’s problem number one, as there’s only one more money of this benefit before it goes away. Will it go away for good is an interesting question, since it was actually an extension of a previous credit of $7,500 from the year before.

Problem number two is that unemployment, if it continues, will mean more homes will be foreclosed upon, more people will be in default, and spending will stop again. Unfortunately, unemployment doesn’t seem to be slowing down any, and with Capmark going into bankruptcy, potentially signaling that the commercial real estate bust is about to begin, it doesn’t seem feasible to expect home prices to continue growing for much longer.

Still, a little good news isn’t such a bad thing, right? I’m sure the housing market will take it for now, and hope to build on it in some fashion for the future.

If you’re older than 21, you probably remember Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, when no less than 14 internet companies had commercials during the game. Some people thought that was the peak of the Dot Com Era; instead, it was actually the end, or drastic demise, of the dot com era. By the end of that year, only a couple of the website that had commercial were still in existence, the others having gone bankrupt.

Since that time, there hasn’t been a lot of interest in most internet stocks. Sure, Google has jumped way up there, but most of the rest haven’t done much, and they’re almost seen as an afterthought.

Until now. Suddenly, internet stocks are on the rise again. What’s going on? Check this information out:

* Google’s revenue was up 27% in the third quarter;

* Amazon and Netflix both hit their highest stock price ever on Friday;

* Priceline stocks are now trading at their highest level, surging 140% in 2009;

* Blue Nile stocks are up 165% in 2009;

* Even Yahoo showed an increase of $180 million after all their problems, though their stock price hasn’t escalated as much as the other internet companies.

Internet companies are starting to flex a bit of muscle again. Powerhouse Facebook is suddenly worth $10 billion, and no one is sure what Twitter is estimated to be, since they refuse to disclose any financial information about their company.

More and more companies are starting to understand the power of the internet, and are starting to get into the game. Last year, one blogger was able to sell his site for around $15 million; that’s a fantastic amount for a blog that wasn’t even ranked all that high, a finance and banking blog that, counter to public beliefs, was not the motivation for creating this blog (although, if anyone is reading this who has big dollars, more than the $300 I was offered two weeks ago, I’d be willing to entertain any 6-figure offers). It’s a new world, and it seems that maybe not everyone has learned the lessons from almost 10 years ago just yet.

Still, it’s probably a good time to start looking into some of these stocks. Some analysts are saying they believe some of these companies might be overvalued, so be cautious.

The latest news is that Connecticut Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat, proposed Monday that there be a freeze on the interest rates and fees on existing credit card balances until the new credit card law takes effect. This follows a proposal by the House to move the new regulations up from February to December 1st.

Not that we haven’t talked about what the credit card companies have been doing to all of us often enough, but it’s sure nice that it’s finally getting some attention in Congress. It’s too late, even if it passes, to save many of us from what’s already taken place, including canceling our cards, but maybe both of these moves will slow down the rush of what’s been going on, because many people are victims to this change, and they didn’t do anything wrong. I’m wondering if some senators have suddenly seen their credit cards jump as well; you know they’ll always go on the attack when someone is trying to take their money.

Something else about this credit card thing is that it’s not just happening here in the United States. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom announced plans to make credit and store card operators “clean up their acts” by trying to stop not only credit card solicitors jacking up rates, including payment rates, but issuing unsolicited credit card checks and a couple other things.

And it’s not only there. Canada, the Philippines, and many other countries are also finally saying they’ve had enough from these credit card issuers and are looking at ways to stop the assault on consumers. We don’t always think about other countries when things like this are happening to us, but this proves misery loves company.

Of course, the credit card industry isn’t staying silent, although there may not be anything they can do about it. A representative from a group called the Financial Service Roundtable said they oppose the freeze, stating that interest rates aren’t going up because of the impending law, but because banks are in trouble because of the unsteady economy and people defaulting on credit card payments. Oh course, he didn’t address the reality that most of the people who are experiencing these high interest rate increases aren’t people who have been missing payments, so that argument holds little water.

Keep your eyes and ears open; this could be a good thing for us all if Senator Dodd can push it through.

Back in July, I wrote a post on the impending problems coming regarding commercial real estate. Well, it seems it’s ready to start showing its anger, and man, did it start off near the top.

Capmark Financial Group, one of the nation’s largest commercial real estate lenders, which also used to be known as GMAC Commercial Holding Corp, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend, listing total debts of $21 billion and assets of $20.1 billion. Their banking system remains secure, but the main company states it needs time to restructure. They had posted a $1.6 billion loss for the last quarter.

These guys were heavy into bank rolling strip malls, something else I talked about when I wrote on why banks were closing. All over the country, you see both strip malls and larger malls that have a lot of empty space, with some having over 50% vacancies. It’s a similar thing to the regular real estate market, where these home builders felt if they built it buyers would come, and now there are thousands of homes in fancy developments that are practically worthless.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. Another big time investor that’s predicted to probably be filing for some kind of bankruptcy in the next few weeks is New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors, who tried to bully tenants into giving up rent controlled apartments so they could build luxury apartments and charge top dollar. Instead, the tenants fought back, the judges sided with the tenants and found $200 million in increases illegal, and that’s probably going to be that.

At this point, it’s unknown what kind of impact the Capmark bankruptcy will have on jobs, other than those people who work for them. If they are funding construction projects in place right now, those will probably stop, in which case all those people will be out of work as well. What the trickle down for this will be isn’t known right now.

Brace yourself, people; it’s only just begun.

On Thursday, the “Pay czar” of the United States (I didn’t even know we had such a thing) decided to slash the salaries of those bank executives from banks that the administration gave bailouts to. These slashes were drastic, and were in response to bonuses that had to be paid out to brokers who, somehow, were a part of helping the Dow Jones break 10,000, and had incentive clauses in their contracts.

Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg reworked contracts for the 25 highest-paid employees at five financial firms and two automakers who were the biggest benefactors of the bailout. He’s cutting their compensation 90% for the rest of the year. He did say he wouldn’t go backwards and take some of what they’ve already been paid back. This involves: American International Group; Bank of America; Citigroup; General Motors; Chrysler; GMAC; and Chrysler Financial.

To say that the American public was up in arms is more muted than how people actually reacted. Some folks lost their minds when they heard about the bonuses being paid out. I can’t say I blame most of those people. After all, the Dow has gone back and forth since it hit 10,000, and the weekend ended with it under that mark again. Also, it wasn’t really these companies that had much to do with the Dow getting to 10,000 either. Citigroup and Bank of America posted big losses. Chrysler did post a profit, but they also sold 20% of their company to Fiat, so that might have helped some. Overall, these companies haven’t quite lit the world on fire with the bailout help, and, it seems, the banks might either need some help or, as many believe, should be left to burnout and go away.

How do I feel about cutting salaries? Oddly enough, I have to say that I had mixed feelings, but I don’t now. Initially I thought the government was going after everyone at these companies, and I had a problem with that concept. Seeing that it’s limited to 25 people total, I don’t have those qualms anymore. One of these guys, and I don’t remember which one right now, still earned $10 million last year. Another, who had dropped his salary to only $1, still earned $40 million in bonuses and incentives. For a bank that had been bailed out!

That’s not criminal, but how could anyone not see that as a problem? I don’t have a problem with incentives for employees because that’s just how the world works. But for these executives to take that much money after having to be bailed out; that’s just a shame. I’m one of those people who never holds it against anyone for making the money that someone is willing to pay them, but in this case I’m making an exception because the bonuses that were earned were false. The salary part, I really don’t have as much of an issue with, but lessons have to be taught, right?

One of the Bank of America executives said that cutting these salaries could result in talent leaving these companies for greener pastures, which meant companies that didn’t have to accept the bailout. To me, it seems that one of the problems with these companies is that they didn’t have any real concept of how to recruit, or at least evaluate, talent in the first place. That’s not uncommon, but it’s still frightening. If the only “talent” someone has is making money, but they have no discretion, I don’t know that I want that kind of talent on my staff. At the same time, I also don’t want the kind of talent that feels everything can be fixed by slashing workers and protecting profits above everything else. There has to be a balance after all.

Those are my thoughts; what are yours?

My goodness! We had been sitting on 98 bank closures for close to 3 weeks, and I started wondering if maybe we were just going to limp over the 100 mark, if we actually reached it.

It seems this one wasn’t even going to be close, as 7 banks were closed on the same day, with another bank, #99, being closed on Wednesday, bringing this year’s total to an amazing 106 banks. That’s phenomenal, and scary at the same time.

Instead of naming them all, which can be found in the news, I think it’s more important to talk about where these banks closed. All of them were small, regional banks. All of them closed in states where real estate is killing them. Florida led the list with 3 bank closures, followed by one in Georgia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and California. That only one bank closed in California with their ills is almost surprising, as much as none closing in Arizona or Nevada, with their housing situations, is also surprising.

This is the highest bank closure rate since 1992, when 181 banks closed the year the first President Bush was voted out of office. Seems to be something relating this family to bank closures, doesn’t it? Anyway, Georgia leads the year in bank closures with 20, Illinois is second at 17, and California is third with 10. California is a huge state, though, so it’s easier for them to absorb losses than the other two states.

Unfortunately, it’s not over yet. Since the average is more than 10 banks a month being closed, we’re on pace to have at least 120 banks close before the end of the year. There are no solutions at this time, so we’ll just have to sit back and wait to see who falls and who survives.

Unemployment numbers are high across the country. Many communities have reached double digit figures, and the country as a whole is sitting on 9.8, which means it’s probably going to surpass that figure fairly soon.

I’ve always been a bit leery of unemployment numbers. Unless the economy is humming, I’ve always known that you could add at least 2 or 3 percentage points to unemployment figures at any time. That’s because what most people don’t pay attention to are those people who drop off unemployment and still aren’t working. And that happens frequently.

Just today, CNN printed a story saying that around 7,000 people a day are falling off unemployment because they’ve not had jobs for that long a period of time. Once they fall off, they’re not counted anymore. So, they’re the under-represented, non-counted potential majority in this country, at those kinds of numbers, and it’s scary.

What’s the issue? There are no jobs for most of these people to go to. When you have factories close and lay off thousands, and you realize that most of those folks are unskilled workers, just where the heck were they supposed to find new work? Manufacturing is leaving this country in big numbers, as these weasel companies are finding that they can put up shop elsewhere for less money and less regulation. They say they’re doing it for the consumers here, so they can charge lower prices; yeah, lower prices to a population that doesn’t have a job and still can’t afford the product.

Just to go on the record, I’ve never been against outsourcing to anyone who proves they can do the job better. But if the job is equal, I’m against rewarding companies for moving plants out of the country so they can save millions of dollars. If I had my way, I’d put a tariff on any American company that makes products outside of the United States. I’d do it without hesitation, but I’d make sure that any benefit they got for moving those factories from here was minimal.

Can we, the United States, get away with that? Sure we can. Look at how we’re somehow pressured all these other countries into giving up banking information so they can go after people’s taxes. Some people call these folks tax cheats; I’ve called them inventive entrepreneurs. I would never have done it, but I can see how these guys could come up with it, banking in other countries so they didn’t have to pay taxes on the money. That’s how the system worked, and I wasn’t mad at anyone for figuring it out.

I believe this country has a duty to start protecting the American worker and American jobs. There should be standards set, and there should be tariffs levied. Either that or figure out another way to stimulate business ventures in this country. That’s what stimulus money needs to go to. We need some of those jobs back; we need to give people a chance to get back to work.

Someone tell me why this can’t work.

There was an interesting article on CNN Money today. It was titled Is the market rally a hoax?.

The basic question the article addressed was why did the stock market go back up? It looked at real estate, the banking sector, utilities, unemployment and large organizations and says that not all that many of them are reporting good news, nor have been reporting good news. Some of them have posted numbers that on the surface look pretty good, but when compared to last year at the same time they’re either still below that number or holding fairly steady. In essence, the article seems to say that the only reason some companies look good is because they’re being compared to previously worse numbers. That, and a lot of speculation from investors that the economy is ready to turn the corner.

I remember back in January I believed that the Dow would never fall below 6,500, and I turned out to be right on that one. However, I never gave any thought to why it would start going back up. Now that I am thinking about it, I guess I figured that, at some point, buyers were going to feel that the market was about as low as it was going to be, and it would be time to snap up some big time bargains. It’s the same thought I had with real estate and all those foreclosures, which has happened, though not to the degree I had thought.

Overall, the economy is still bad. Unemployment is still high, people are still being laid off, and foreclosures are still occurring. Major banks are posting big losses; so are many companies. Yesterday, Home Depot, DuPont and Coca-Cola all posted bad financial quarters. The stock market fell, though it’s still above 10,000 right now.

Is speculating enough to have made the market go this high? Is the article correctly worrying that, if other bad financial news comes in, the market may crash again and head right back towards that 6,500 figure? No one knows; certainly not me. I will go out on a limb and say this, though. I don’t think we’ll see 6,500, or be close to it again. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dow drops below 8,000 again, however. I think this holiday season is going to show fewer sales than last year, which is going to start another round of department store closings and factory layoffs. I also don’t think we’re going to see another stimulus package, especially if the health care bill gets passed, and indications are that it’s going to go through.

The Dow isn’t going to get much better any time soon; and people are worried about their credit scores.

Oh my goodness. Am I just picking on Citigroup et al, or have they been in the news a lot in the past couple of days?

Yesterday I talked about how Citibank jacked up my wife’s credit card. Four days ago I talked about how Citi crashed and burned by posting that $3.24 billion loss.

News came in last yesterday that, over the weekend, many people tried to use their gasoline cards, which were issued by Citigroup for those companies, and found that they weren’t working. All of them were Mastercards. When people called to find out what happened, they found that their cards had been closed.

Citi owned up to it today, saying they sent out letter today (of all things) saying they were closing a bunch of these “oil-branded” credit cards, including Shell, ExxonMobil and Phillips 66-Conoco cards. I actually have a Mobil card that I haven’t used in a few years, so I guess this means I’ll be getting my notice at some point, if my card is still deemed active. My mother also has one of these cards, but I had talked her out of using it a couple of years ago, opting to have her use a credit card that gave her points for purchasing items with it.

Anyway, it seems that even with the new credit card legislation that’s coming, credit card issuers can close accounts at any time, without warning, whether you’ve been a good customer or not. And get this; supposedly many people with this card could see their credit score take a hit because the account has been closed by the bank, even though it’s not the customer’s fault. That’s another reason I believe credit scores are a joke. Not that anyone’s credit scores are helping them buy anything of substance these days, including real estate.

Folks, if you’re doing any business with these people, you need to beware. They’re going down fast, and they may end up taking many of you with them. I’m not going to say anything more; man, I’m so done with these folks!

Man, it seems all I’m doing these days is talking about things Citigroup is doing. Unfortunately, this time it’s hitting really close to home.

On Saturday, my wife got a letter from Citi saying they were jacking up her interest rate from 16.99% to 29.99% effective in November. She can close the card before November 30th to lock in the rate, but she’ll have to cancel the credit card to do it.

Instead, she says she’d rather pay off the card and keep it in reserve until she definitely needs it, then work on paying it off every month when the new bill comes in. It’s probably manageable, as she only has $400 available on the card to begin with, but man, did I see this coming.

Actually, no I didn’t, because I forgot she had a Citi card. But I saw it coming across the board, especially after posting that big loss last week. I think I also wrote somewhere around here that I couldn’t remember why I hated these people so much; with what they just did to my wife, now I remember.

At this point, the only big credit card I have is with American Express; I think they’re done picking on me for the time being. It feels like a marathon trying to get to December before new rules kick in, that’s for sure. We can all only hope for the best at this point.

Bank of America and Citibank must be related.

On the heels of Citibank’s bad financial disclosure yesterday, Bank of America has done the same thing, announcing that they’d lost around $2.2 billion compared to their big profit announcement last quarter. And, like Citibank, they were able to post that profit because of a major sale, rather than because of their normal business operations.

Once again, I feel vindicated since I called it back in July, saying that I thought both of these profit numbers were false and wouldn’t sustain themselves. I don’t quite trust them either, but I’ve never really thought of them as being as sneaky as I have Citigroup; not sure why, though. After all, they are about to institute an annual fee on cards that have never had them before, starting with 1% of their customers to see how it works before rolling it out on, well, possibly everyone, though they’re not really saying.

Of course, both Citibank and Bank of America were among many who got bailout money from the government, and some people thought the report they gave in July proved that the bailout money worked. Many others, including myself, didn’t, and what’s being shown now is that the economy is still in trouble, despite the Dow hitting 10,000 yesterday (as I’m writing this, the Dow has fallen again below that figure after the bad bank figures, and General Electric not hitting the expected revenue figure, though they still made a profit).

This is going to take some time. I had said that I thought the stock market would start making its turn by the middle of the year, and I called that one. But I’m now starting to think that we’re not going to start hearing good financial news for at least another year to 18 months from now. That’s scary, but I’d rather know now so I can make some decisions, rather than be caught off guard later on.

As for Citigroup and Bank of America,… maybe they should change up their commercials and start begging people to trust them. Then again, it still wouldn’t be me. And Bank of America, as if they needed more publicity, has to deal with this ridiculous lawsuit from a guy who wants $1,784 billion, trillion dollars for a perceived customer service slight. I guess if you’re going to sue someone, go for the gusto.