Tea Bird

Exxon Mobil Posts Record Profit (Again)

Of course. We’re in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but Exxon Mobil still pumps out the dough:

Exxon Mobil Corp. set a quarterly profit record for a U.S. company Thursday, surging past analyst estimates.
Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), the leading U.S. oil company, said its third-quarter net profit was $14.83 billion, or [...]

Pittsburgh jobless rate drops in September

Some more good local economic news:

The Pittsburgh region added 7,000 new jobs year-over-year in September, and saw its unemployment rate drop to 5.4 percent, the state reported Tuesday.

Erosion Could Cause Allegheny River Dam To Fail

We really could use a big infrastructure investment around Pittsburgh. These locks & dams are 75 years old and a vital, if often unseen, component of our local infrastructure.

The Army Corps of Engineers says a dam on the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania is so eroded it could fail if it is hit [...]

MSA sales highest in company’s history

My family has a long and largely happy history with MSA, and it’s good to hear some positive economic news for a change these days:

Safety products maker Mine Safety Appliances said its third-quarter sales were the highest in the company’s 94-year history, with profits jumping 75 percent, excluding a one-time gain a year ago.

Financial Meltdown Worsens Food Crisis

A big part of this problem is that the “Green Revolution” brought the need for synthetic fertilizer to the developing world. This is but one of the consequences.
From the Washington Post:

As shock waves from the credit crisis began to spread around the world last month, China scrambled to protect itself. Among the most [...]

Out of Michigan

This is absolutely huge news. How does McCain get to 270 now? Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are his last bets to pick up a sizable (sorry NH) Kerry state. Unfortunately for McCain, neither of those are at all trending in his direction. In fact, he’ll have a lot of trouble holding Florida, Ohio, [...]

Schmo screws up Google

Sorry about that! My bad.
From :

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — An accidental trade drove shares of Google Inc. to unbelievable lows Tuesday, causing the Nasdaq to correct the stock’s closing price and adjust the index’s final value.
The Internet search engine’s stock appeared to have plummeted to a low of $25.80 at one point during [...]

$700 billion amount was just made up

Forbes’ Wingfield and Zumbrun bring us this scoop on how Paulson and Bernanke got the $700 billion figure:

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

It is, to borrow from my daughter, just another way to say “exillion” dollars.

Haiti Needs Our Help by Rep. Maxine Waters

An Amen to this from Rep. Maxine Waters:
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has suffered through several natural disasters previously. But none compare to the storms that hit Haiti over the last month. Haiti has been struck by four hurricanes and tropical storms in rapid succession. Severe flooding, landslides, wind [...]

Paulson, Senate Dems reach tentative bailout deal

From The Hill:

Senate Democrats emerged from a meeting Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to report a general, conceptual — but fragile — agreement on a $700 billion plan to rescue the U.S. financial markets. 
Senators said Paulson and the Democrats struck very tentative deals on Democratic demands on oversight and transparency, executive pay limits, [...]