Oil prices bounced past the emotional $100 a barrel level, and then dropped back to 99.18. Down 44 cents for the day.
Intel dropped out of the the One Laptop Per Child program, quitting their seat on the board and scrapping plans to deliver an Intel product for the program. I never understood why they got into the program, really.
The US Treasury plans to provide prepaid debit cards for Social Security recipients… no more stealing their checks. Or mailing them out late. Of course, they can still screw up the deposits.
The IRS (weren’t we going to get rid of them?) is planning to restrict tax prep companies like H&R Block from offering refund loans to customers. That will put a crimp in their business.
This is good. How in the world does IBM end up being a big polluter? Making people in Endicott, NY sick. I would have thought all their manufacturing was done overseas by now.
And then today, December jobs numbers are released and the number of non-farm jobs rose ONLY 18,000. Unemployment has climbed to 5%. I don’t get why the Dow had to drop 250 points for the day… it’s not like these numbers were unexpected. Every time some little thing happens, sell, sell, sell. I wonder if it was really the jobs numbers, or the news of Britney Spears heading to the hospital.
I only know this stuff because the WSJ actual continues doing their job even on a day like today… the Des Moines Register was the Des Moines Caucus Report, and I don’t blame them… I’m sure if I looked I could have found some other news there as well.
