Everyone wants a bailout
- Banks. “With 20/20 hindsight,” the bank-capital injections have achieved their objectives and the decisions on TARP will “prove to be the right ones,” the Treasury secretary said.
- Automakers. With auto sales continuing to plummet, analysts expect the automakers to ask for more once the new Congress and Obama administration take over in January. And the finance arms of the Big Three are expected to seek bailout money set aside for banks and other financial institutions as well.
- Home builders. Builders want a package of subsidies that would bring mortgage rates to just under 3 percent for the first half of this year. They also favor a tax credit of up to $22,000 for home purchases.
- Porn. Larry Flynt says, "With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America."
Gimme more
- Obama says his stimulus plan will save over 4 million jobs. "The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries," Obama said on his weekly radio and Internet address. "And they'll be the kind of jobs that don't just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term."
- If you're an office worker looking for a job, I hope you know how to put up guard rail, lay asphalt, and build windmills. "These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can't be outsourced," Obama said.
Randomosity
- I thought maybe as a side gig, I'd build some iPhone applications. You can make thousands with applications that make fart noises these days. In what’s got to be the most incredible moneymaking story this year, developer InfoMedia (Joel Comm) created an iPhone app called iFart Mobile that has made them nearly $10,000 a day ($9,198 in one day alone).
- I thought I'd go more high brow, and work on the vomit sounds. Somebody beat me to that.
- Did you catch President Bush at the dedication of the new USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier?
- NFL Playoffs time, baby.