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Due to the economic crises, folks generally spend more time bargain shopping then they used to. Consumption has taken on a whole new meaning.

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NEW YORK (AFP) – Investment giant Goldman Sachs on Tuesday said its profits fell 82 percent in the second quarter of the year against the same period last year. Reporting net earnings of 613 million dollars, Chief Executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said the business environment had become tougher for the embattled firm. “The market environment become more difficult during the second quarter, and as a result, client activity across our business declined,” he said in a statement. In first three months of the year, Goldman reported that profits had nearly doubled to 3.46 billion dollars. Revenues in the second quarter reached 8.84 billion dollars, down 36 percent from the year before. Story continues below… Compounding the decline, the New York-based firm reported a 600 million dollar hit from the introduction of a tax on executive compensation in Britain. The announcement also came days after the firm said it had agreed to pay a record 550 million dollars to settle government fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Facing allegations of defrauding investors, the storied investment bank admitted it had made a “mistake” and given “incomplete” information to clients. The SEC had accused Goldman of allowing a prominent hedge fund — Paulson & Co. Inc — to put together a package of subprime mortgages that were sold to clients, but which Paulson was also betting against. That settlement was included in Tuesday’s report. Net revenues in Goldman’s all-important investment banking arm fell 36 percent versus the second quarter of 2009, revenues from trading also fell by 35 percent. Pay and bonuses for 34,100 staff ate up 43 percent of revenue.

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Little noticed comments from former President Bill Clinton over the weekend which he made in South Africa are perhaps — well — a bit explosive. “Unless we send the Navy down deep to blow up the well and cover the leak with piles and piles and piles of rock and debris, which may become necessary – you don’t have to use a nuclear weapon by the way, I’ve seen all that stuff, just blow it up – unless we’re going to do that, we are dependent on the technical expertise of these people from BP,” Clinton said. Clinton was speaking about British Petroleum’s efforts to staunch a massive leak that erupted after one of the oil rigs it was leasing blew up Apr. 20. His remarks about the explosion solution come at about 2:30 into the recording, posted below. Matt Simmons, founder of energy investment bank Simmons & Company, suggested earlier this month that the US military could close the drill hole with a nuclear weapon. “Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapons system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil,” he said. Story continues below… His idea echoes that of a Russian newspaper that earlier this month suggested the US detonate a small nuclear bomb to seal the oil beneath the sea. Komsomoloskaya Pravda argued in an editorial that Russia had successfully used nuclear weapons to seal oil spills on five occasions in the past. “Weapons labs in the former Soviet Union developed special nukes for use to help pinch off the gas wells,” Live Science wrote earlier this year . “They believed that the force from a nuclear explosion could squeeze shut any hole within 82 to 164 feet (25 to 50 meters), depending on the explosion’s power. That required drilling holes to place the nuclear device close to the target wells.” “A first test in the fall of 1966 proved successful in sealing up an underground gas well in southern Uzbekistan, and so the Russians used nukes four more times for capping runaway wells,” the site added. Critics of Clinton’s plan have told Fox that BP is resisting the option because blowing up the well would ensure they could get no more oil. “If we demolish the well using explosives, the investment’s gone,” former submarine officer and nuclear policy scholar at Columbia University Christopher Brownfield told Fox News in May. “They lose hundreds of millions of dollars from the drilling of the well, plus no lawmaker in his right mind would allow BP to drill again in that same spot. So basically, it’s an all-or-nothing thing with BP: They either keep the well alive, or they lose their whole investment and all the oil that they could potentially get from that well.”

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When a duo of right-wing provocateurs posing as a pimp and prostitute released selectively-edited videos trying to impugn the community activist group ACORN, both Democrats and Republicans condemned the organization. Congress then voted to cut off federal funding for the group (a decision that was later ruled unconstitutional ). Following negative press and Congress’ vote, ACORN effectively disbanded Apr. 1 and reorganized under new names. But a just-issued report by the Government Accountability Office that reviewed ACORN’s federal funding at the behest of Congress  found little grist for the mill for politicians or right-wing bloggers looking to bash the now-defunct advocacy group for the poor. The 38-page report surveyed over 31 federal agencies, probing how ACORN used federal funds and whether adequate controls on spending existed. The report found no evidence of fraud, lax oversight or misuse of federal funds. Story continues below… In fact, the report discovered that ACORN had adequately accounted for spending $40 million worth of major and minor grants awarded by the federal government to the group since 2005 to combat a variety of problems afflicting poor Americans, including lead poisoning, housing discrimination and lack of adequate job training. The preliminary report on the group’s funding also found that of the grants that warranted audits no irregularities in spending were found.  Smaller grantees said that oversight was adequate as well. Of eight major grants awarded ACORN by the federal government the report found fault with one, a grant by Neighbor Works. “Neighbor Works determined that ACORN Housing Corporation had not provided a description of what it planned to accomplish under the grant, as required. After Neighbor Works brought this to the attention of ACORN Housing Corporation officials, these officials subsequently provided the documentation. Oversight of sub-awards is generally delegated to grantees,” the report states. Of fifteen sub-grants awarded ACORN by a variety of federal agencies, the report did not find any irregularities. “EPA, Treasury, NEA, and Neighbor Works grantees provided a total of 15 sub-awards to ACORN or potentially related organizations,” it said. “EPA reviewed the grantees’ work plans which included sub-award information, finding no problem with the sub-awards.” The report noted that six of nine agencies that reported grants to ACORN still had ongoing audits of the programs that had not yet been completed, including an audit of Investment Recovery Act funds given to the organization. The report also found that 29 out of 31 federal Inspector General’s offices do not have any ongoing investigations into ACORN. The IG’s office of the Internal Revenue Service and the Housing and Urban Development Department declined to report if there were ongoing investigations into ACORN. Along with the preliminary finding, the federal agency did a comprehensive review of all criminal investigations by the Department of Justice and federal Inspector General’s since 2005. The agency also found the Federal Election Commission had closed all investigations into voter fraud by the group. “The FEC identified four closed matters that involved allegations that ACORN or potentially related organizations violated the Federal Election Campaign Act.28.  For each of these matters, the FEC determined that there was no evidence that such violations occurred.” The GAO report said that of six FBI investigations into ACORN-related voter fraud all had been dropped because of lack of evidence. Only cases against individuals working for ACORN were prosecuted. “However, only ACORN employees were the subjects of the prosecutions. According to ACORN and Project vote officials, the organizations provided information to local election officials that helped initiate prosecutions against their employees who may have been involved in voter registration fraud.” The report gives brief mention of the now-infamous video that brought down the organization, noting that the actions depicted in the recordings did not result in any criminal prosecutions. The report’s conclusions cast doubt on the near-universal condemnation of ACORN that proceeded from the release of video tapes made during visits to several branches in different cities by right-wing activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. Posing as a college student and a prostitute, the duo solicited advice from ACORN workers, many of whom can be seen allegedly counseling the couple on ways to evade taxes and how to run a brothel. Critics said the video clips were taken out of context and highlighted only those parts that looked disparaging.

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WASHINGTON — News Corp. announced Monday it has bought Skiff, an electronic reading platform developed by Hearst Corp., and invested in Journalism Online, a company which seeks to help news organizations make money on the Web. “Today’s developments underscore News Corporation’s ongoing commitment to create strong business models that support journalism at a time of great change in our industry,” News Corp. chief digital officer Jon Miller said. “Both Skiff and Journalism Online serve as key building blocks in our strategy to transform the publishing industry and ensure consumers will have continued access to the highest quality journalism,” he said in a statement. Financial terms of the agreements were not disclosed. The acquisition of Skiff from newspaper and magazine publisher Hearst and the investment in Journalism Online are the latest moves in News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch’s campaign to get readers to pay for newspapers online. Story continues below… As print advertising revenue evaporates and circulation erodes, US newspaper and magazine publishers have been looking to carve out a future on the Internet and with e-readers and mobile devices. Murdoch has announced plans to eventually make readers pay for online access to all of the newspapers in the News Corp. stable. The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp. paper, currently charges for full online access and The Times and Sunday Times are poised to become the first newspapers in Britain to begin charging readers on the Web. Skiff is an e-reading platform designed to deliver layouts for newspaper and magazine content to tablet computers, smartphones, e-readers and netbooks. Skiff has also been developing an e-reader but the acquisition announcement from News Corp. did not mention any plans for the device, which has yet to hit the market and has been overshadowed by the release of Apple’s iPad. Journalism Online was launched in April of last year by three veteran US media executives with the goal of helping newspapers and magazines collect revenue from their online readers. The company has developed a payment platform called “Press+” that would allow subscribers to access paid content at the websites of its affiliates using a universal Journalism Online account. “We’re delighted by this (News Corp.) investment and this vote of confidence,” Journalism Online co-founder Steven Brill said. “We’re especially pleased with this investment because News Corp. is the industry leader in making the case that there is value in journalism online for which readers will be willing to pay,” added co-founder Gordon Crovitz. News Corp. also announced that Jon Housman, who has been a strategic adviser to the company for several years, had been named president of News Corp.’s digital journalism initiatives.

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Kucinich: Flotilla raid jeopardizes US troops in Iraq Some conservative commentators and lawmakers are pointing the finger of blame at President Barack Obama over Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla that ended with the death of nine activists. On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain told Fox News that the Obama administration’s calls for a settlement freeze in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem set the stage for the deadly May 31 incident. “This is another step in a chain of unfortunate events beginning with President Obama’s insistence that there be a freeze, as a precondition for peace talks, a freeze on settlements in Jerusalem,” McCain told Fox’s Sean Hannity. “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, not a settlement.” Talk show host Michael Savage linked President Obama to the flotilla raid much more directly. Savage told listeners that he believed the Israeli commandos sent on board the Mavi Marmara were “betrayed” so that their deaths would be “good PR” for Israel’s allies. (No Israeli service members died in the raid.) And he suggested it was the Obama administration that pressured Israel into “dangling [its] soldiers like bait into a tank of sharks.” Story continues below… “As far as I know, it was Obama’s administration that told them how to do this attack,” Savage said. “It was probably one of America’s peace-loving generals, who knows which one of them did it.” Savage then went on to suggest an even stranger theory: That the flotilla itself was set up by political extremists in the United States who have been linked to Obama. “There are Web sites that are alleging that this was orchestrated not so much by Turkey but by the United States, from Chicago, by Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dhorn, who are members of the Free Gaza group.” KUCINICH: FLOTILLA RAID JEOPARDIZES US TROOPS IN IRAQ Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of Congress’ most outspoken progressive leaders, has circulated a letter he wrote to President Obama calling on the United States to “redefine its relationship with Israel” in the wake of the Gaza flotilla raid, and said Israel’s actions posed a risk to US troops in Iraq. Because the raid has strained Israel’s relations withTurkey, the Israeli raid “undermines United States’ troops efforts in Iraq, since your administration’s efforts to achieve stability in the region and to withdraw troops from Iraq has depended upon Turkey’s cooperation through use of its air bases,” Kucinich told Obama. Kucinich said that while “no one questions the right of Israel to defend its border,” the country “must account for our support, for the lives of our soldiers, for the investment of billions from our taxpayers. Israel owes the United States more than reckless, pre-meditated violence waged against innocent people.” Kucinich added that the raid must have “consequences for the Netanyahu Administration and for the State of Israel. Those consequences must be dealt by the United States. They must be diplomatic and they must be financial.” The following video was broadcast on Fox News’ Hannity , June 1, 2010, and uploaded to the Web by ThinkProgress . The following audio was broadcast on The Savage Nation , June 1, 2010, and uploaded to the Web by MediaMatters .

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Firm’s stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP. According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter. If Goldman had sold these shares today, their investment would have lost 36 percent its value, or $96 million. The share sales represented 44 percent of Goldman’s holdings — meaning that Goldman’s remaining holdings have still lost tens of millions in value. The sale and its size itself isn’t unusual for a large asset management firm. Wall Street brokerages routinely buy and sell huge blocks of shares for themselves and their clients. In light of a recent SEC lawsuit arguing that Goldman kept information about a product they sold from their clients, however, the stock sale may raise fresh concern among Goldman’s critics. Goldman is also a frequent target of liberals and journalists, including Rolling Stone ’s Matt Taibi, who famously dubbed the firm a ” vampire squid .” Story continues below… Two calls placed to Goldman Sachs’ media office in New York Wednesday morning after US markets opened were not immediately returned, though Raw Story decided to publish the story quickly after the calls since the stock sale had been already noted online . Others also sold stock Other asset management firms also sold huge blocks of BP stock in the first quarter — but their sales were a fraction of Goldman’s. Wachovia, which is owned by Wells Fargo, sold 2,667,419 shares; UBS, the Swiss bank, sold 2,125,566 shares. Wachovia and UBS also sold much larger percentages of their BP stock, at 98 percently and 97 percent respectively. Wachova parent Wells Fargo, however, bought 2.3 million shares in the quarter, largely discounting Wachovia’s sales. Those reported buying BP’s stock included Wellington Management, a large asset firm, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. BP is struggling to cap a massive oil leak at one of its drill sites in the Gulf of Mexico. The firm’s myriad safety violations over the years have come to light in lieu of the Gulf disaster. BP traded on average at $56.86 in the first quarter, according to GuruFocus , a site that monitors the major trading moves of prominent investors. A list of major institutions’ sales of BP stock are available at the market research website Morningstar. It’s certainly unknown as to why the firms sold their holdings. In its analysis of the company in mid-March, Morningstar, the market research site, gave the company an average rating of three out of a possible five stars. “BP’s valuation carries more uncertainty than ExxonMobil’s or Shell’s because the firm is less integrated, with more of its earnings coming from the [exploration and production] business than from potentially offsetting refining operations,” the site’s analyst wrote. “Like its peers, a sustained drop in oil and gas prices can hurt upstream earnings. Lower crude-oil feedstock costs could help refining margins, but refined product pricing lags could quickly swing refining profits to losses. BP’s global business faces potential disruptions caused by political risks, particularly with its heavy exposure to Russia. Disruptions caused by environmental and operational constraints could further limit earnings potential.” The transnational oil company, like other energy giants, was hit with lower oil and gas prices in the past year after the price of oil surged in 2008. “BP’s BP fourth quarter marked another quarter of year-over-year production gains, with a 3% increase thanks to new field startups,” Morningstar’s analyst wrote in another note, after BP turned in better than expected fourth quarter results in February. “BP reported fourth-quarter replacement cost profit of $3.4 billion, up 33% from year-ago earnings of $2.6 billion, as upstream earnings growth was more than enough to offset downstream weakness. For the full year, BP’s earnings of $14 billion were 45% below year-ago earnings of $26 billion, in part because of lower oil prices earlier in the year. We’re encouraged by BP’s sequential earnings gains as new projects and cost-cutting efforts drive upstream results.” The SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Goldman Sachs and one of its vice presidents in April, asserting that the firm had committed fraud by misrepresenting a mortgage-investment product inherently designed to fail. The company helped a hedge fund trader create a mortgage investment that gained value as mortgage borrowers defaulted en masse. In response, Goldman said the SEC’s charges were “completely unfounded in law and fact” and averred that it would “vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation.” The firm has also faced criticism over giant bonuses paid to staff amidst the US financial crisis. Goldman reduced the sizes of its staff bonuses this year to $16.9 billion, and said it would pay its chief executive $9 million , far less than the previous year. Goldman also announced it would create a $500 million program to help small businesses. Critics noted that the figure represented just 3% of the bonus pool.

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