We are often told that investment bankers are much cleverer than the rest of us. But sometimes, they do seem to lack common sense. Their behaviour since the Crisis, in paying out $bns in bonuses to the lucky few, seems no way to appease understandable public anger over the cost of the banks’ bailout

More here:
IMF targets bankers’ FAT

The Department of Finance explains the data revision here .  In terms of the GGB in 2010 and subsequent years, there is an interesting set of communication issues.  As per the DF note,  one approach is to make a sharp distinction between the ‘headline’ and ‘underlying’ GGB with the difference consisting of the ‘unrequited’ capital transfers into Anglo-Irish etc. (as opposed to the equity-type investments in AIB and Bank of Ireland).  This distinction may be effective if the bank-related capital transfers are a ‘once off’ event or a “twice off” event (ie 2009 and 2010) but may lose its force in relation to a steady sequence of capital transfers over the next decade.  To the extent that the promissory notes spread out the capital transfers over a long period,  this may be a downside to this approach relative to making a larger-but-final capital transfer in 2010

Go here to read the rest:
More on the Revised GGB

A guest post from frequent commenter Dr. Henning Große Ruse-Khan ACTA – A Draft Trade Agreement with a Potential to Create Trade Barriers

Read the rest here:
Große Ruse-Khan: ACTA – A Draft Trade Agreement with a Potential to Create Trade Barriers?

Eurostat has today announced that the Irish general government deficit for 2009 was in fact 14.3% rather than the 11.7% figure that the government has been reporting. Reuters report Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said this was a result of a technical reclassification associated with government support provided to the banking sector. “It is important to note that the underlying 2009 general government deficit for Ireland is 11.8 percent of GDP, which is broadly similar to that projected in December’s budget,” he said

View original post here:
Eurostat Revises Irish Deficit to 14.3%

The local Houston Chapter of the FACC belongs to the largest private global network of over 114 Chambers of Commerce within 78 countries andhas nearly 200 active members in Houston. New Chairman and outgoing President, Jean-François …

Originally posted here:
openPR.com – Press release – French American Chamber of Commerce …

Future migration to the US from Mexico is likely to be an insignificant factor in US government spending on benefit programs and US labor markets. This is because Mexico has gone through the demographic transition like many developed countries, moving from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as it developed from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system

Here is the original:
Prospects for future migration from Mexico to the US

POSTED AS A COMMUNITY SERVICE BY GADABOUT-BLOGALOT Hello Everyone- First off, I’m sorry if I’ve duplicated this e-mail to anyone-I lost all of my contacts and had to reestablish the list. Hopefully, everything will be back on track next month.  Roadrunner Food Bank is providing the food and we will distribute it on  April 22 nd from 5:00-7:00 pm to anyone needing help.  I’ve attached the flier.  If you know of anyone that might benefit from this program, please let them know.  I’m also asking for help passing the flier out or distributing it to businesses or churches.  I won’t be able to hit every church or business and I know they will be a valuable resource in reaching families that can benefit from the pantry.

See original here:
Roadrunner Food Distribution & Civitan Clothing Distribution (4/22/10)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez signed 25 cooperation agreements in agriculture, science and technology, electricity production and other areas in Caracas on Tuesday following Fernandez’s participation in Venezuelan bicentenary independence celebrations on Monday.

View original post here:
Venezuela Signs Energy, Infrastructure, Agriculture Accords with Argentina

While Paul Krugman has seemed to go against the rising tide of experts calling for the giant banks to be broken up, he clarified his position last week: My view is that I’d love to see those financial giants broken up, if only for political reasons: it’s bad to have banks so big they can often write laws. Bingo! The giant banks have enough money to – literally – purchase the politicians

See original here:
Krugman: Break Up the Giant Banks to Stop Their Domination of the Political Process

It’s that time again—every quarter RGE provides clients with macroeconomic outlooks for the countries we cover, along with updated country-by-country GDP and CPI forecasts. Our latest outlook, examining our projections for Q2 and beyond, is hot off the presses .

Read this article:
RGE’s Wednesday Note – Reading the Tea Leaves for Q2 and Beyond

In the wake of suing Goldman Sachs for fraud in the creation and sale of mortgage-backed derivatives, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it will look closely at other similar transactions by other big Wall Street banks, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Carrick Mollencamp, Serena Ng, Gregory Zuckerman and Scott Patterson (Note: the WSJ appears to have double the usual number of reporters on this story).

More:
Goldman – Like CDO Abuses Were Prevalent Across Wall Street

The impact of government scrappage schemes continues to dominate European auto sales . As the chart shows, sales were up 9.2% in Q1, and March was up 10.8%, versus 2009.

Continue reading here:
EU auto sales rise 9% in Q1

Mary Kane, U.S. Chamber of Commerce director of special projects, said the purpose of the campaign was to encourage students who have an interest in starting their own businesses to do so

Original post:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce representatives to visit university – News

Over at Balkan Insight, Tim Judah’s article “Vojvodina’s Ageing Minorities Stare Extinction in The Face” provided an interesting examination about how the fourth stage of the demographic transition is leading to the disappearance of some relatively well-established ethnolinguistic minorities.Puffing, panting and yelping in Romanian, six men are expertly dancing around three ping-pong tables.

Read more from the original source: 
Vojvodina’s ethnic homogenization as a 21st century paradigm

In a massive show of support for the Bolivarian revolution led by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, an estimated one million red-clad supporters turned out to watch the “Independence and Revolution” bicentennial civic-military parade, in Los Procéres, Caracas yesterday.

Read the original post:
Large Crowds Turn Out for 200-Year Independence Celebrations in Venezuela

Tonight the Longview Partnership hosted its first City Council Forum for candidates at the Partnership.  All candidates from District 5 and 6 were in attendance.

Link:
Council Forum Provides Members Opportunity to Understand Views and Positions of Candidates

The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), representing the interests of nearly 3 million Hispanic-owned businesses and over 200 local Hispanic chambers of commerce nationwide, expressed its grave disappointment at the …

More:
HispanicTips » » United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce …

Federico Fuentes – Green Left Weekly Following nation-wide assemblies involving more than 10,000 electricity workers to collectively discuss solutions to Venezuela’s electricity crisis, 600 delegates gathered in Carcasas on April 8-9 to present there proposals on how to restructure the sector.

More here:
Venezuela: Workers’ control to solve power problems

When the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to file its enforcement action against Goldman Sachs, the two Republican commissioners voted against it, reported Kara Scannell in her Wall Street Journal article, “SEC Split on Party Lines Over Goldman Case.”

See the article here:
Republican Commissioners Opposed SEC Action Against Goldman Sachs

The Greek financial saga is the tip of an iceberg of problems of public-debt sustainability for many advanced economies, and not only the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain). Indeed, the OECD now estimates that public debt-to-GDP ratios in advanced economies will rise to an average of around 100% of GDP.

See original here:
The Debt Death Trap

A story today by The New Republic about the financial reform efforts in Congress begins ominously: Some two dozen executives from large corporations will be descending on Capitol Hill today to make the case against over-regulating derivatives. Oh, no.  This financial stuff is hard enough to follow without also having to worry about a legion of Wall Street defenders assaulting our legislators.

Continued here:
Blanche Lincoln: A New Hero Of The Left?

Paulson, the hedge fund manager who shorted the Goldman Sachs CDO that is the subject of the SEC’s enforcement action, and the other “shorts” were “driven by disgust and indignation … against Wall Street and its corrupt system designed to generate undeserved bonuses,” according to USAToday’s article entitled “Goldman case shows what’s the matter with Wall Street.”

Follow this link:
USAToday Observes that Wall Street Banks "Are No Longer in the Game for Their Clients but for Themselves"

If you work for a non-profit you may not have heard of the Accounting Standard relating to Uncertainty in Income Taxes.  Or if you have heard of it, you may be thinking that it does not apply to you since non-profits do not pay taxes.   If you fall into this line of thinking, then you are going to be wrong. This Accounting Standard is applicable for non-public entities with year ends beginning after December 15, 2008.  It requires an organization to record a tax liability when substantial uncertainties (more likely than not) exist as to whether certain income is exempt from income tax

Read more:
Non-Profits and Taxes -What?

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona This isn’t about economics anymore, this is now about who does what, and when, and how everyone else reacts. Certainly the news that Greek bonds hit another post-EMU record high yesterday can hardly be said to have come as a surprise. 10-year bond yields reached 7.76 per cent at one point and closed up 26 basis points on the day.

Read the rest here:
Do I See Movement In The Greek Trenches?

If you are in the real estate business, you will know that taking care of bookkeeping functions of the business takes a lot of time and effort. This is mainly because real estate bookkeeping is very different than bookkeeping for other businesses. It is more complex and requires the attention of an experienced bookkeeping professional

Read this article:
Want to save time and effort for your real estate business? Outsource bookkeeping