LyrArc Article Gist
The percentage of credit card balances owed by subprime customers, according to Keefe Bruyette and Woods, is 30.3% for Bank of America, 29.8% for Capital One, 27.9% for Discover, and 27.3% for Citigroup. The companies ranked by market share in private label cards are GEneral Electric 39.2% and Citigroup 21.7%. All these companies that have turned risky customers into cash cows with hefty fees and interest rates will see much of this disappear with the President's new law banning some of the practices of these companies that hurt consumers. Most of the credit card industry has operated without some of the basic consumer protections one would expect in a highly educated and literate society with democratic governance. Even retailers like Target depend on this for profits. Target which has its own credit card operation earned $355 million in credit finance charges and $87 million in late fees and other revenue in the last fiscal quarter.

LyrArc Article Gist
Barrack Obama made his speech on May 21 on national security, the war on terrorism and Guantanomo on May 21, 2009. The speech referred again and agin to the Constitution and documents of founding of the United States by the founding fathers. It was held in the hall of the National Archives Building, with the founding fathers in the background on a wall painting.

LyrArc Article Gist
Says El-Erian, CEO of PIMCO, the future, which he and his colleagues at PIMCO like to call the "new normal," will be quite unfamiliar. Most people had become conditioned by the experience of what is normal under a finance driven economy, deregulation and globalization. Now he says things will not revert back to their previous states in spite of all the government's efforts to restore the normality. With all the flexibility and regenrative forces at work, these will not be sufficient to offset the disruptions that have taken place. For one thing the growth rate will slow. Annual trend growth rate won't look like the previous number. He says forget the 3% annual growth rate of the last 15 years. The number will be more like 2% or less when the economy recovers. See the link to lower USA growth rates in the future. He sees unemployment high in the next 3-5 years, with a floor of 6%. The financial system in the US will be carefully regulated, and look more like a utility. And the anglo-saxon model of capitalism, which gives finance a central role will be seen worldwide as too crisis prone and risky. With global growth shifting to India, China and Brazil, the shift of wealth and economic dynamism to these countries will accelerate, in a context of lower worldwide growth....