The Red Brick Times

  Wednesday, February 25, 2009

On todays menu:

For bailed out bankers it's salmon and filet mignon.

For Albuquerque Public School kids who don't have lunch money it's a lesson in personal responsibility. Little deadbeats. That'll learn 'em.

Posted 5:31 AM by whatley (2) comments

       Comments:
  • Little bastards. Trying to cheat us, are they? They need to learn there are consequences when you don't have connections.
    # posted by Blogger Terri S : March 01, 2009 5:39 PM
     
  • Terri! How nice to hear from you.

    Wonder if it ever occurred to them that if they saved up their milk money (assuming they have milk money) they could then hire lobbyists of their very own. Hmm... I smell a job opportunity.
    # posted by Blogger whatley : March 02, 2009 4:25 AM
     
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  Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Even Japan is crashing. They rely on exports of autos and electronics, and the success of their economy further boosts the yen, and weakens their economy by making exported products unaffordable in euros or dollars or pesos. Plus their foreign factories (US car plants for example) are taking losses also. But there are some places that are less stricken. Think Pittsburgh. They did the whole job and housing and income loss scene when steel died decades ago. Now they are feeling less pain because housing prices were already low, banks had already cut silly practices, and manufacturers had already focused on niche areas where they were competitive. And nobody bailed them out. Check out a Time article.

Posted 6:33 AM by Andy (6) comments

       Comments:
  • I've been thinking of moving my liquid assets to a local credit union (vs. a bank). Their rates on checking and CDs are outstanding. Anybody use credit unions or have any relevant feedback?
    # posted by Blogger whatley : February 17, 2009 10:29 AM
     
  • I have accounts in both banks and local credit unions. From a services perspective I have found the attention I get at the local bank branch and my local credit union to be indistinguishable. What the bank offers is a large set of products options. Now this is relevant if you need more than a checking, savings and credit card account, but if you're like me most of their products are beyond my needs. The one element to keep an eye on is the access to $$ via ATMs. Are they part of a large network? Are there 'use' fees, and how are they defined?

    Both are insured to same levels ($250 K, as if THAT matters ;-)) and depending on the bank charter they probably supervised by the same regulatory unit "Office of Thrift Supervision" HERE'S THE LINK. All in all, there is no substantial difference.

    My 2 cents.
    # posted by Blogger jeichenlaub : February 17, 2009 4:27 PM
     
  • Umm... I couldn't find anything about them there. They're called CommStar.

    They're privately insured (not FDIC) and have ATM's at their 3 branches (the main office is close to my house). They credit you with up to $10/month for foreign ATM use. No fees for checking (or anything else, (at least that I'm aware of).
    # posted by Blogger whatley : February 17, 2009 5:06 PM
     
  • Regarding COMMSTAR (Community Star Credit Union Inc.):
    CU Home page

    OH Govt Regulator Listing

    OH Department of Commerce

    Primary Deposit Insurer: American Share Insurance

    If you didn't already have them.
    # posted by Blogger jeichenlaub : February 18, 2009 8:23 AM
     
  • Yes, thank you, I was aware of those links. There's a site called BankRate.com that asks all registered financial institutions for a copy of their reports then rates them against each other by type (banks vs, banks, S&Ls vs. S&Ls, etc,) Here's the page that fetches the individual ratings (it's in .asp so I can't link directly to the Community Star results). To make a long story short it only gets two stars out of five. Not so good. Their biggest problem (as best I can understand it) is under capitalization. That kind of makes sense as what attracted me to them is their very high CD and savings rates, (ie. they're trying to fix that). Does this mean they're not safe? Beats me. The two star rating doesn't say that, just that they're "underperforming" when compared to their peers.
    # posted by Blogger whatley : February 18, 2009 3:59 PM
     
  • All for naught. I went there today to start an account and, alas, their CD rates had fallen by more than one point (since I got my first info there Saturday). Fuck 'em. I'll stay where I'm at for now.
    # posted by Blogger whatley : February 19, 2009 5:09 PM
     
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  Wednesday, February 04, 2009

"A day after Macy's executives announced lay-offs of 7,000 workers and cut a dividend in half, top company officials received a final installment on $1.39 million in performance bonuses from 2004."

The fun never stops for some people.

Posted 4:16 PM by whatley (0) comments

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