Various and Interesting links for the week…

From RJ

15 Creepiest Subversive Ads in History

Google Expands Tracking to Logged Out Users
Anyone who’s a regular Google search user will know that the only way to avoid the company tracking your online activities is to log out of Gmail or whatever Google account you use. Not any more.As of last Friday, even searchers who aren’t logged into Google in any way have their data tracked in the name of providing a ‘better service’.The company explained: “What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customise search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser.”

LOLFed.com

China Executes Securities Trader Who Hid Millions – Some wanted Yang Yanming kept alive so he would explain where the 65 million yuan ($9.5 million) went, news reports said. Yang refused to tell.

Wall Street Snaps Its Fingers - For months now, Congress has been stumbling through an exercise billed as “financial regulatory reform,” purportedly  dedicated to bringing law enforcement to the Wall Street Casino.  One activity notably popular among the gamesters has been the “dark markets” in the $600 trillion derivatives trading markets, not least because trades are executed on a bilateral basis between dealer and customer, with no public price disclosure, at least not until well after the fact. However, last weekend, days before it was to come before the full house for debate, the House Rules Committee posted the final version.  A friendly veteran of such dealings quickly passed on the somber news:“…It appears the forces of darkness never rest…”

Ex-Fed Chief Paul Volcker’s ‘Telling’ Words On Derivatives Industry - Paul Volcker, the chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, stunned a business conference in Sussex yesterday, saying there is “little evidence innovation in financial markets has had a visible effect on the productivities of the economy”.  Echoing FSA chairman Lord Turner‘s comments that banks are “socially useless”, Mr Volcker told delegates who had been discussing how to rebuild the financial system to “wake up”. He said credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations had taken the economy “right to the brink of disaster” and added that the economy had grown at “greater rates of speed” during the 1960s without such products.

Top 10 Countries Most Likely To Default (interactive slide show)

What Must Be Addressed: Rising Abject Poverty – I define abject poverty as lacking shelter and sufficient food to stave off hunger. By this simple measure, abject poverty is rising in the U.S. even as Wall Street pockets billions in bonuses, the government squanders $2 billion a day in Afghanistan and trillions more on toxic mortgage securities and other bailouts of the Power Elites.  Yes, there are homeless shelters and food stamps, but the reality of how many are living on the knife-edge financially is not captured in the usual (manipulated and massaged) government statistics.  Almost half (46%) of 2,148 consumers surveyed recently said they weren’t confident they could come up with $2,000 within a month in a crisis–from savings, family, friends, credit cards or other sources.

Do Americans Want Health Care Reform, or Not? – Polled support for the health care plan wending its way through Congress continues to crash downward in the polls.  And before you say it, it’s not just Rasmussen, which has actually been pretty much in the middle of the other polls. Here’s where we stand as of today…For reform advocates, this is not good news.  At 40% approval, it probably passes.  At 30% approval–what Social Security reform enjoyed by the time it imploded–it’s not going to no matter how the Senate massages their plan.  Democrats cannot pass a bill this large on a straight party line vote if the only people in the country who want it are Democrats.

TARP Came “Out Of The Air” – Don’t read this from today’s Washington Post if you have a weak stomach or blood pressure problems.  In a remarkable story, Neel Kashkari, the many who conceived of and ran TARP for Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, admits that the $700 billion figure came “out of the air.”  Here’s the money quote: “It was a political calculus. I said, ‘We don’t know how much is enough. We need as much as we can get [from Congress]. What about a trillion?’ ‘No way,’ Hank shook his head. I said, ‘Okay, what about 700 billion?’“

The President’s new economic proposal – Here is the President’s new economic proposal, which he is not calling a stimulus

Highlights Of The Financial Overhaul Bill – WSJ Summary

Loopholes Lurk in Bank Bill – WSJ – Buried in a 239-page amendment to the U.S. House of Representatives’ financial regulatory overhaul is a provision that appears to do just one thing: exempts financial-services company USAA from some of the bill’s tougher provisions. The carve-out is one of a number of exceptions that allow companies to avoid fresh scrutiny envisioned by the White House, which is aiming to overhaul the nation’s financial-regulatory apparatus. The beneficiaries run from corporations such as General Electric Co. and Pitney Bowes Inc. to USAA, which caters to members of the military and their families, to so-called fraternal benefit societies.

Dean Baker: The Return of the TARP Hostage Takers - Since the TARP escapade worked so well, the Wall Street gang is now trying another round of hostage taking, possibly for even bigger stakes. This time the plan is go after Social Security and Medicare. The Wall Street crew knows that members of Congress are not likely to vote to gut these two hugely popular programs under normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, members of Congress who voted to cut these programs would be looking to an early retirement: hence the hostage-taking route. The plan is to hold up legislation for raising the debt ceiling unless a provision is included for establishing a commission for the purpose of cutting future deficits. This commission in turn would be stacked with people who want to cut Social Security and Medicare…

Almost 4 Out of 10 Americans Pay NO Income Tax – The Tax Foundation reported last week that more than 143 million individual income tax returns were filed in 2007, and 46.6 million of those returns had a zero or negative tax liability, setting a new record for the number of “non-payers.” This group represented almost one out of every three tax returns filed in 2007 (32.6 percent, see chart above), and reflects tax filers whose exemptions, deductions, and credits wiped out any federal income taxes that would have been due.

Employment Chart Round-Up | The Big Picture
Okay, chart fans: Here are some of the more informative, telling and fascinating charts tha the December 4 Non-Farm payroll helped to produce (10 charts, various souces, links to more)