PSoTD

Not a shocker.

And anyone who's a Countrywide client - we have a "regular" mortgage through them, and have for a dozen years - has probably noticed an onslaught from Countrywide in an effort to get people to refinance and/or restructure their mortgage, or borrow additional money. Every piece of crap we've gotten from the company makes absolutely no sense for us to pursue as a loan recipient, but makes sense for Countrywide to pursue, particularly in the style and volume of the advertising, only if they are truly desperate to generate revenue.

In some ways it makes me uncomfortable to have Countrywide as our mortgage company. I'm wondering when I'll see a counterattack by another mortgage company along the lines of - "Feeling nervous about Countrywide? Looking for a mortgage company you can trust?" - that will be custom delivered to those who have Countrywide mortgages.

Apparently balloon sales are already taken. Maybe pest control!

There seems to be a regular news drum beat about saving money - stop going to coffee shops.

When I was a teenager - back in the 1970s - jobs were hard to come by, besides working as a busboy or dishwasher in a restaurant. Old times have returned.

Dan Mills wanted to spend his summer working construction and learning how to build timber-frame structures.

Instead, the Maple City teen expects to bus tables at a local restaurant while hoping that at least some of the 20 job applications he's fanned out will come through. But he's not overly optimistic.

"I think for people around here, it's kind of difficult," Mills, 19, said of the region's job market for teens. "Every place I went was a 'no'. It was absolutely impossible."

Mills isn't alone. Teenagers across Michigan face an increasingly tight job market this summer, according to labor analysts from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

The state's unemployment rate for youths ages 16-19 hovered around 21 percent for the past two summers, and conditions aren't expected to improve for 2008. The state's teen summer job outlook will be released in early May.

Michigan's teen labor force totals more than 300,000.

Mills, who will be a junior at Grand Valley State University in the fall, still hopes to gain some work in the construction business, but expects it would only be through an unpaid internship, due to a significant slowdown in regional building activity.

"If I want to get experience in construction, I'm not going to get paid for it," Mills said. "It's a pretty big blow."

I wonder if we'll see an increase in teen-related "boredom" problems, such as vandalism.

Teenagers across the country already are struggling with higher prices for gasoline. Now it could be harder for them to find summer jobs, although the outlook around Houston appears much brighter.

Nearly half of U.S. companies that typically hire a lot of teens, such as retailers and restaurants, report that they don't plan to take on any seasonal workers this year, according to a recent survey of 1,100 hiring managers by SnagAJob.com.

And of those that do plan to hire, 64 percent of them plan to just take back the teens who worked last year, said Cathy McCarthy, senior vice president of marketing at SnagAJob in Richmond, Va.

A handy link in case anyone else out there will need to do this someday.

Airlines? Real Estate companies? Retailers? NOPE.

Since January, the most-represented industry for public companies filing for Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection might surprise you. While the recent spat of airline and retail filings has generated a lot of press, these are not the most frequent filers in the public company bankruptcy arena. Instead, telecommunications is the current winning industry--with five public company petitioners, according to BankruptcyData.com--a Boston-based website that tracks business bankruptcies.

Interestingly, there are several well-represented industries among the 2008 public filings. Most notably, there have been a total of four manufacturing and three each of automotive and oil & gas bankruptcies thus far. The two industries receiving the greatest press--retail and aviation--list only one public Chapter 11 filing each.

When sorted by total pre-petition assets, the industry reporting the highest figure is construction: home building goliath TOUSA, Inc. (TOUS) listed $2.8 billion. Manufacturing filings came in second with $1.7 billion, and the bronze goes to the restaurant industry with $1.4 billion.

The Hess Gas station wasn't very busy, but it's becoming quite universal, the end of pumping sound of signs, groans, and grumbling. The lady next to me was pumping up her Expedition, and I could have swore I heard her mutter "just don't look" when she finished.

I wonder how the newspapers are being impacted by the downturn in the real estate market. Today's Patriot-News had an 8 page real-estate section, with very few of the large panel realtor company ads that are bought to highlight multiple properties by the realtor. Now we're in April, and in Central Pennsylvania this is supposed to be the prime time for marketplace activity.

Back on January 6th of this year - mind you, still in the downturn, but earlier, and at what is usually a very SLOW time for real estate activity, coming off the holidays and during a time where bad weather is expected - there was an 10 page real estate section in the Patriot-News. And there was twice as many of the big panel ads.

I haven't seen anything on the impact on newspapers yet from the real estate marketplace downturn, but I'm sure it's happening.

Sounds like it's hard to get ahead with this job in the Postal Service:

Rural Carrier Associate

Work Site of Job: Clark County, Forest County, Langlade County, Lincoln County, Marathon County, Oneida County, Portage County, Taylor County, Vilas County, Waupaca County, Wood County - Marshfield Area, Wood County - Wisconsin Rapids Area

Pay: $17.51 Per Hour

Duration/Hours Per Week: Full-Time/Part-Time, 0.1 to 40 Hours Per Week

Shift/Work Days: Mornings, Afternoons and Weekend Shift. As scheduled.

Monday through Saturday.

Number of Openings: 5

Minimum Requirements of Employer:

Education: High School Diploma/GED Equivalent Required

Professional Licenses/Certifications: No Licenses or Certifications Requested

Vehicle: Required, Mileage reimbursement available.

Drivers License: Type: Class D - Regular (Auto, Light Truck, Moped) Required Endorsements: No Endorsement Requested

Age: 18 or older Required

Experience/Qualifications: Experience: Applicants must have a valid state drivers's license, a safe driving record and at least two years of documented driving experience.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Job: Rural carrier associates are non-career employees who service on a rural route. They sort, deliver, and collect all classes of mail up to 70 pounds, along a rural route using a vehicle. Rural carrier associates provide customers on the route with a variety of services, including selling stamp supplies and moneys orders. They must generally provide and maintain their own vehicle, but are given an equipment maintenance allowance.

I guess I just found it curious that the United States Postal Service is requiring that mail delivery employees actually use their own vehicles.

I tend to chew gum, big dumb galoot that I am. Seems to me that the price of gum dropped a dime between two weeks ago and today at Giant. Temporary, local, or reflective of competing for dollars against the increasing prices of real food?

I dunno, I suspect American Airlines will be bought up on the cheap by the end of the year. This is just too public of a projectile diarrhea event in the marketplace.

Interesting.

Hackers hired by a News Corp (NWS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) unit stole and posted data that allowed free access to Dish Network's (DISH.O: Quote, Profile, Research) satellite television service, the company said, in a corporate spying trial against its rival that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dubbed the "Black Hat Team," the computer whizzes flooded the market with smart cards that allowed free satellite TV access, a lawyer for Dish said on Wednesday. The suit was brought by EchoStar Communications which later split into two companies, Dish and EchoStar Corp.

A lawyer for News Corps's NDS Group (NNDS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) denied that the company engaged in spying, saying during opening statements in the trial that it was instead engaged in reverse engineering by obtaining the codes and were monitoring piracy.

"Because this is a competitive business, NDS also monitors competitors," NDS attorney Richard Stone told jurors. "NDS has done nothing to illegally harm or damage EchoStar. All NDS has done is compete hard and fair in the marketplace."

Dish is suing NDS and NDS Americas in a corporate espionage trial that U.S. District Judge David Carter said could bring an award of "hundreds of millions or perhaps billions."

Go Dish Network, go Dish Network, go Dish Network...

Does anyone really make any money doing these kinds of affiliate programs? I mean, besides companies like Circuit City?

At your local strip mall:

The vacancy rate at U.S. strip malls rose to the highest level since 1996 in the first quarter of 2008, while that for big malls reached levels unseen since 2002, research firm Reis said on Friday.

The amount of space occupied by retailers fell for the first time since Reis began tracking the sector in 1980.

"Retailers are grappling with the implications of the housing and job market downturns for consumer activity, with the result that retail sector fundamentals -- occupancy and rent levels -- are being strained by anemic demand for space," Reis chief economist Sam Chandan said in statement.

Strip mall vacancies rose 0.2 percentage points from the preceding quarter to 7.7 percent.

By the end of the year, the rate likely will reach or surpass 8 percent, Reis said.

In the past, there has been certain paperwork required at the bank, or at accountants, or other locales, that I've driven over to Camp Hill or New Cumberland because it was cost-effective/efficient. Too bulky to fax, etc.

But now... with the cost of gas, I'm mailing this stuff. It's actually cheaper when I include the time required to ferry it over. How long can that keep up? How long until the next postal increase, based on the cost of fuel?

Thank you, credit companies.

Consumers fell behind on car, credit- card and home-equity loans at the highest level in 15 years, another sign the U.S. economy is slowing, according to the American Bankers Association's quarterly survey.

Payments at least 30 days past due increased across all eight categories of loans tracked during the fourth quarter, the Washington-based group said today in a statement. Late loans in the quarter climbed 21 basis points to 2.65 percent of all accounts in a consumer-loan index created by the group.

Apparently, that is the fate of the Isuzu.

The end of the line for Isuzu in North America: Isuzu Motors, which helped popularize sport utes in the 1980s, will exit the North American consumer market on Jan. 31, 2009. The Japanese company attributed the decision to General Motors ceasing production for Isuzu of the Ascender sport utility vehicle and I-290 and I-370 pickups. Ascender is a rebadged Chevrolet TrailBlazer, which GM is expected to discontinue. The I-series pickups are versions of the Chevy Colorado small pickup. "It has always been our intention to remain in the U.S. market," Terry Maloney of Isuzu Motors America, said in a statement. "However, we were unable to secure any commercially viable replacements for these vehicles." Isuzu's boxy Trooper sparked interest in truck-based sport utes in the late 1980s, helping push its U.S. sales to a peak of 103,629 in 1999. Since then, Isuzu has had the industry's steepest decline, selling just 7,098 vehicles last year.

Making direct mail green?

Let's not kid ourselves.

Number of Visa and MasterCard credit card and debit card accounts in the U.S. in 2006.

Seems like an interesting case.

James Krider has filed a lawsuit against banking giant Capital One Bank over post-bankruptcy false credit reporting. Mr. Krider alleges that Capital One has continued to credit report Capital One accounts as delinquent or charged off on his credit reports even though he discharged them in bankruptcy proceedings. Mr. Krider is represented by prominent Southern California credit damage and identity theft attorney Robert F. Brennan, of La Crescenta, Ca. James Krider v. Capital One Bank, et al., Case No. CV 07-07707 ODW (AJWx), United States District Court, Central District (Los Angeles).