Tag Archives: economy

The San Francisco LGBT Center has issued a statement denying yesterday’s SF Chronicle story claiming that they’d requested a $1M mortgage bailout from the city. Via their PDF: We do have $3.2 million in outstanding debt related to the construction of the building, which has been carried in a loan with First Republic Bank. After almost a year of very …

San Francisco’s LGBT Center is asking the city for a $1M “mortage relief” bailout so that it doesn’t go under. Eight years after opening with great fanfare, San Francisco’s city-subsidized, $12.3 million Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center is on the verge of foreclosure – and is asking the cash-strapped city for a $1 million line of credit to …

According to a lengthy list published by USA Today, the federal government pays better than the private sector in 8 out of 10 job categories. Hit the link for the rest of the alphabetical list.

Just now in the Senate: Sen. Jim Bunning has again blocked the Senate from extending unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless. The Kentucky Republican objected Tuesday to a request by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a fellow Republican, to pass a 30-day extension of jobless benefits and other expired measures. The measure would also extend highway programs and …

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that billionaires gave less to charity in 2009. In purely financial terms, last year was a dismal one for megagifts. The donors on the Philanthropy 50, The Chronicle’s annual list of the most-generous people in America, gave a total of $4.1-billion to charity in 2009, less than in all but one year since the newspaper …

Colorado Springs, world headquarters for Focus On The Family and home to the Air Force Academy and numerous defense industry factories, is going through the kind of budget crisis that some say is on its way to many other American cities. More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for …

Goldman Sachs, favorite whipping boy of the teabaggers (and just about everybody else), is said to be considering a bonus for its CEO Lloyd Blankfein that may reach $100M. Goldman Sachs, the world’s richest investment bank, is facing a potential political storm over how much it pays its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein. Bankers in Davos for the World Economic Forum …

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): In his State of the Union address, President Obama asked Congress to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. I am immensely proud of, and thankful for, every American who wears the uniform of our country, especially at a time of war, and I believe it would be a mistake to repeal the policy. “This successful …

Rachel Maddow ticks off all the economic advances made in Obama’s first year. Yet here comes the Republicans’ favorite idea: the spending freeze.

The Governator thinks it might be good idea for California to build prisons in Mexico and ship the state’s undocumented immigrant criminals there. “We can do so much better, in the prison system alone, if we can go and take inmates – for instance, the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here – and get them to Mexico,” …

The White House announced late today that President Obama plans to propose a three year freeze on discretionary spending during Wednesday’s State of the Union address. The proposed freeze, which could help position Obama in the political center by sharpening his credentials on fiscal discipline, would exempt the budgets of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, along …

The owners of NYC’s Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, which were purchased in 2006 in the largest real estate deal in U.S. history, have defaulted on their loans and are turning the properties over to creditors. “We make this decision as we feel a battle over the property or a contested bankruptcy proceeding is not in the long-term interest …

The liberal talk radio network Air America abruptly announced Chapter 7 bankruptcy today and ceased operations. It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to …

New York Magazine reports that the New York Times may be days away from announcing their return to a “metered” online subscription system in which readers must pay to read more than a certain number of articles per day. The choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the …

United joins the fee increase. Bloomberg News is reporting that United Airlines plans to start charging $23 for a first piece of checked luggage, a 53 percent increase, to match fees by competitors Delta and Continental. A second bag will cost $32, up from $25, Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based parent UAL Corp. told Bloomberg. The prices apply to …

While LGBT folks may have plenty to complain about, Rachel Maddow pointed out last night that by many standards, Barack Obama has had a very successful first year. Watch this.

Walgreens, Second Avenue, 9pm Woman In Scrubs: I like to keep an unscratched $5 Lotto ticket on my desk. It feels like a mystery savings account. Female Friend: You should upgrade to a $20 ticket. Then you can pretend it’s a trust fund.

When the man with the world’s largest wang can’t even get a job, the terrorists have won.

As Japan’s economy tanks with the rest of the world, Tokyo’s famed “capsule hotels,” originally created for businessmen who’d missed their evening train, have turned into extended-stay apartments for the unemployed. Makes you reconsider NYC’s 55 square feet apartment, doesn’t it?

Click over to IO9 for a slideshow called The Grandiose Decay of Abandoned Detroit. Strangely and sadly beautiful. Detroit proper has lost half of its population since peaking in 1950, although the surrounding suburbs and metro region has continued to grow.