Private sectors jobs in January

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 2, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning payroll giant Automatic Data Processing announced its monthly payroll survey results.  The numbers are encouraging vis-a-vis the unemployment rate in the United States.  In January the private sector added 187,000 jobs.  This compares to an expected result of 143,000 by an consensus of economists.   However, December’s gigantic jobs add number was revised significantly...
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Outrageous Wall Street executive pay 2010-style

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 2, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday evening the Wall Street Journal reported that total compensation and benefits at Wall Street firms totaled a record $135 billion in 2010.  Mind you, this is just for the publicly traded firms, there are many other Wall Street firms that are not publicly traded.   Let’s put this outrageous figure into perspective shall we?   Last year, according to the Bureau of Economic...
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Another crisis in Jordan?

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 1, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments One of the questions on the minds of those of us concerned about the revolution-evolution in Egypt is what the effect will be on other Middle Eastern nations.  After all, Egypt’s crisis began after a popular uprising in Tunisia.   So you may have heard the news out of the country of Jordan today that King Abdullah II has fired the entire government of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. ...
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Reliable source of Middle East news

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 1, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Hello everyone!   For years and years my favorite source, and the best source for news about the Middle East is Al Bawaba.  While I have recommended this organization for news about this important region before on the blog it seems particularly timely right now given the unfolding revolution (or perhaps just a plain vanilla evolution) in Egypt.   I have relied upon Al Bawaba for...
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Bank of America’s Incentive Compensation Plan is a Model for Other Financial Firms

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 1, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments News trickled out Monday evening about the new pay package for Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s CEO.  I won’t quote all of the details of the plan, but what I consider to be most noteworthy and admirable is the board of directors tying Moynihan’s pay to the Bank’s four-year performance.  This is truly extraordinary!   Furthermore, none of Bank of America’s...
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Home Prices Still Falling

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 31, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments Several weeks ago I wrote a post about the inevitable continued decline in home prices in a post dated 18 January, 2011.  This morning the Wall Street Journal is reporting the results of its latest quarterly survey of regional home prices that confirms what I wrote recently.   Specifically, in all 28 metropolitan areas that the survey tracks prices declined as compared with prices one year...
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Implications of Egyptian revolution

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 31, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday I described what I felt intuitively was going to happen in Egypt.  But even if the scenario does not unfold as I described it there will still be enormous change in Egypt.  What are the implications of this change for the rest of the world?   Egypt sits at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in North Africa.  This strategic position means that what goes on in Egypt affects...
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