CNNMoney - SPECIAL REPORT AMERICA’S MONEY CRISIS, November 10, 2008: 10:37 AM ET

Wall Street manages gains on insurer’s new bailout terms, China’s stimulus plan. GM and Ford continue to slump.

By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer

Stocks rise on AIG courtesy of independent.co.uk

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks climbed Monday morning as investors welcomed the government’s revamp of its AIG bailout and news that China has initiated a $586 billion stimulus plan.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 150 points, or 1.6%, around an hour into the session. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index gained 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) added 0.5 %.

All three major gauges had been higher in the early going.

Stocks fell last week but managed to gain Friday despite a brutal October jobs report and GM’s massive quarterly loss.

Monday brought a heavy spate of corporate news, including AIG’s huge restructuring and Circuit City’s bankruptcy.

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CNNMoney - October 29, 2008: 7:32 PM ET

Ravaged by the downturn, MetLife, Hartford and Prudential announced grim results for their latest quarter.

courtesy of kewlmag.com

By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Three major insurance giants reported their third quarter financial results Wednesday after the closing bell and as expected, it wasn’t pretty.

Hartford Financial, MetLife, and Prudential Financial all reported a brutal third quarter. Life insurance companies invest the premiums that consumers pay them in order to cover payouts and expenses and make a profit. As Wall Street has cratered, insurance companies have seen a significant chunk of their portfolios crumble away.

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Silicon Alley Insider - Eric Krangel | October 29, 2008 5:00 PM

courtesy of signsofchristreturn.com

It’s been a big week for OpenID, the idea that Internet users should be able to use a single username/password combination to login at any site, all via an open source protocol.

Earlier this week Microsoft (MSFT) called OpenID a “de facto standard” and pledged Windows Live ID support for the idea, and today Google (GOOG) added their voice to the chorus. With the two new Internet giants now behind OpenID, expect many more sites to begin deploying code to support incoming OpenID logins.

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CNNMoney - October 7, 2008 — Updated 1533 GMT

By David M. Walker Special to CNN

Editor’s Note: David M. Walker served as comptroller general of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008. He is now president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

(CNN) — The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act contains plenty to make lawmakers on the left and right shudder. On the right, it’s the apparent abandonment of free-market principles. On the left, it’s the absence of punishment for high-flying Wall Street CEO’s.

Looking down the middle, what I found downright unnerving was how hard Washington struggled to pass a bill that, in reality, represents less than 1 percent of our current federal financial hole.

Don’t get me wrong. Congress and the Bush Administration are to be commended for acting to relieve the credit crunch and trying to minimize any immediate, adverse effect on our economy and by consequence, on American jobs and access to credit.

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Associated Press - Oct 07, 2008

courtesy of nordsoc.org

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress’ top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers’ nest eggs.

The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people’s savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.

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BusinessWeek - Insurance September 11, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Florida’s state-sponsored home insurer could stick taxpayers with a huge bill when the next storm hits

by Nanette Byrnes

When Hurricane Ike took a left on Sept. 8, heading away from Florida, locals breathed a sigh of relief. Not only are their homes on the line with each burst of violent weather but their pocketbooks are increasingly at risk, too. Over the past four years, Florida taxpayers’ vulnerability to a major weather catastrophe has grown.

The quasi-governmental company that was conceived as an insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, has become Florida’s top underwriter of homeowners’ insurance. Citizens now has more than $433 billion of property exposure on its books, and Florida has exacerbated that risk by getting into the reinsurance business as well. “It’s a disaster,” says Brian P. Sullivan, editor of Property Insurance Report. “This is not something the public should be dabbling with.”

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InformationWeek - Posted by Eric Zeman, Aug 21, 2008 05:20 PM

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is taking more heat for alleged privacy violations stemming from its Street Views service, this time in Sonoma County, Calif. In this instance, a Google Street Views driver went through a gate, past a “No Trespassing” sign, and past a watchdog to take his images. Think your private road is going to stop Google’s prying eyes? Think again.

Betty Webb, a resident in Humboldt County, Calif., isn’t a happy camper. According to her, a Google Street Views driver went up her private road and past two “No Trespassing” signs to take pictures of her house, which is 1,200 feet back from the main street. “It isn’t just a privacy issue; it is a trespassing issue, with their own photos as evidence. They really went off the track to get to our address,” she told The Press Democrat via e-mail.
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