The Center for College Affordability and Productivity recently released the latest rankings of U.S. colleges and universities.
They include the 2011 rankings by Forbes/CCAP, using the Carnegie Classification (by geographic region). Idaho State University ranked 111, out of 112!
Portland State, in Oregon, came in dead last. Who’s number one in the West? Stanford, in California.
By the way, Boise State didn’t do much better, coming in at 109 out of 112!
The Idaho Division of Financial Management reported that October tax revenues were $1.6 million short of what was needed.
State officials were hoping for $210.6 million. So far for the fiscal year 2012, overall tax revenues are $10.8 million below what’s hoped for! Amazingly officials still think they’ll finish the 2012 fiscal year with a surplus!?
The biggest drop was seen in sales tax revenues, to the tune of $4.1 million! So far Idaho sales tax revenues are short by $14 million! Sales taxes are a good way to gauge how well your economy is doing, and it doesn’t look too good.
“The 99% movement is all about finding ways for people to change the economy that is benefiting only the 1%. Bank Transfer Day is about the power of individuals to take their money out of institutions whose profits go almost entirely to Wall Street and keep that money in our community, where we can control it.”-Courtney Yax
The main stream media has their head in a hole. Occupy Wall Street has some power!
On November 5, operation Bank Transfer Day took place. So many people have moved money from banks into credit unions, that by November 5 U.S.$4.6 billion had been taken out of the big for profit banks!
ABC News did report that credit unions have gained 650,000 new members, just in the month of October!
“Regardless of how many people joined credit unions Saturday, there is a big new awareness of credit unions as not for profit financial cooperatives owned by their members. That is the credit union difference we’ve worked to let people know about all along.”- Mary Beth King, Credit Union Association of New Mexico
Credit unions in California gained around 90,000 new members, and $624 million in new accounts.
Here in Idaho (with only a fraction of the population of California), credit unions gained 3,400 new accounts! Alan Cameron, Idaho Credit Union League president, says one credit union gained $1.2 million in new deposits! Corporate bank Wells Fargo (which dominates Idaho banking, with 23% of the market), denies that Idahoans have fled the big banks. Wells Fargo representative Amy McDevitt, says withdrawals were “…very minimal.”
The big banks tried to stop such acts: In New York City last month, dozens were arrested for trying to close their accounts, en masse, at a CitiBank branch.
First the March 11 disasters in Japan, now the floods in Thailand. Toyota says they can’t get enough parts to build their cars.
Toyota and Honda are suffering major parts supply problems (Honda already cut North American production by 50%).
Toyota is cutting back on worldwide production. November 7, according to NHK, Toyota will be forced to cut production by at least 30%.
Toyota was trying to recover from the March 11 disasters, and had hoped to produce 330,000 vehicles in Indonesia, for the month of November. Now they are hoping they can produce 230,000.
Blame it on the incompetent ‘just in time’ parts supply policy.
November 8, scandal for Japanese owned camera and industrial equipment maker Olympus: They deliberately kept losses off their finance books since the 1990s.
More proof that corporations can’t be trusted. The scandal wasn’t the result of Olympus officials confessing, it was the result of a third party investigation!
The losses come from securities investments. Company officials tried to cover up the losses by blaming it on consulting fees, and the purchase of three smaller companies.
Olympus stock is now crashing on the Japanese stock market. Olympus Vice President Hisashi Mori was fired for his involvement in the cover up.
Not only are many of the biggest corporations reporting big profits, they’re paying small taxes. The official tax rate for corporations is supposed to be 35%, but the latest study shows the average effective tax paid is about 18.5%.
Some corporations pay no taxes, and a handful actually have negative taxes!
280 companies in the Fortune 500, that were profitable for all three years between 2008 and 2010, were studied.
111 companies paid effective tax rates of less than 17.5% over the three-year period. 98 paid a rate between 17.5% and 30%.
The average rate is 18.5%. But wait, there’s more. Some companies paid zero taxes! 30 actually owed less than nothing over the three years!
Two of those corporations are Pepco Holdings and General Electric. Over the 2008 to 2010 period Pepco made $882 million in profits, but had a tax rate of -57.6% (yes, put a negative sign in front of that)! But here’s a bigger shocker: GE earned $10.5 billion, with a tax rate of –45.3%! How do you make big corporate profits, and then effectively have the government owe you money?
Lobbyists hired by Corporate America convince your elected lawmakers to create more corporate tax breaks.
The study was done by Citizens for Tax Justice, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
WalMart is in trouble in China, because it hasn’t paid rent since 2002, and it lies about what it sells.
According to Chinese media, in 2002 WalMart signed a 15 year lease contract with the Wanguo Shopping Plaza in the northeastern coastal city of Dalian. Problems occurred with the timely development of the property, and WalMart decided to move across the street. The problem is that they signed a 15 year contract.
Wanguo Shopping Plaza has sued WalMart for back due rent. Chinese courts have ruled that the lease contract is still binding.
WalMart had claimed that Wanguo Shopping Plaza lost its business license, and that the contract was terminated in 2007. WalMart also claimed they paid about two years worth of rent. The courts found that Wanguo Shopping Plaza never lost its license, there is no evidence the contract was terminated, and that WalMart paid a little more than one year of rent.
This is just the latest in bad things happening to WalMart in China. In October, 13 Wal-Mart stores were shut down for 15 days for selling incorrectly labelled pork products. WalMart had previously been penalized 21 times since 2006 for false advertising and selling expired food!
No surprise, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank revised its economic growth forecast downward.
Back in June the bank predicted U.S. growth at 2.9% (which is still bad, it needs to be above 3% to be good). Now they revised it downward by one percent, to 1.9%. Can you say stagnation?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the expanding crisis in Europe has made the future of the U.S. economy increasingly unclear.
On November 3, Sony announced that its television division is likely to post a record loss of about U.S.$2.2 billion for 2011. That makes eight straight years of losses!
Sony is blaming poor sales in the United States and Europe. This is more proof that the U.S. is no longer the market place for the World’s manufacturers.
Sony Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai says there is no sign of any economic recovery, and the company will revise downward its mid-term sales target by half. Sony will also cut way back on TVs sold in Europe and the U.S.
Panasonic and Sharp say they will do the same.
On 02 November 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company said Reactor 2 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was in melt down, again. Now they changed their mind!
TEPCo now says the level of xenon radiation they detected is too low to be from spontaneous fission. Can these guys get anything right?