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HERMANN MISSOURI OKTOBERFEST 2010
HERMANN MISSOURI OKTOBERFEST 2010 - CLICK ON PHOTO FOR THIS YEARS SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Money and Markets TV episodes. We take a look at the next generation of emerging markets, and a closer look at the country dominating the Eastern hemisphere and other emerging markets around the world: China.
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Can't you Hear Me Knocking - The Rolling Stones
1971 - album - Sticky Fingers
Maybe the best Keith Richards / Mick Taylor guitar collaborations ever. Bloody perfect. This song should go down in history as one of the all time best blues/rock composition, performance, recording ever. Raw and gritty and yet somehow with such sophistication.
Keith Richards - Rolling Stones - December 18, 1943 (67 in 2010)
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Paul Rodgers - Free, Bad Company, Firm, Queen - December 17,1949
(2nd from left)
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Title: All Right Now (track 07)
Artist: Free
Album: Fire and Water
Year: 1970
Label: Island, A&M, Polydor
Writer(s): Andy Fraser, Paul Rodgers
Lyrics:
There she stood in the street
Smiling from her head to her feet
I said "Hey, what is this"
Now baby, maybe she's in need of a kiss
I said " Hey, what's your name baby"
maybe we can see things the same
Now don't you wait or hesitate
Let's move before they raise the parking rent
All right now baby, it's all right now
All right now baby, it's all right now
I took her home to my place
Watching ev'ry move on her face
She said " Look, what's your game baby
are you tryin' to put me in shame?"
I said " slow don't go so fast,
don't you think that love can last?"
She said " Love, Lord above,
now you're tryin' to trick me in love"
All right now baby, it's all right now
all right now baby, it's all right now
That's all for now, take care and I'll
be back with more in a few days
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The U.S. government on Friday proposed prohibiting commercial truck and bus drivers from using cellphones while behind the wheel.
The Transportation Department rule would affect approximately 4 million drivers, who are already banned by the government from texting while working.
The proposal is the latest move in Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's stepped-up campaign against distracted driving in which he has questioned cellphone use in passenger cars and "hands free" communications technology.
1. Tron: Legacy 3D (Disney) NEW [3,451 Theaters] Friday $18M, Estimated Weekend $47M
This is exactly the sort of movie to benefit during the pre-Christmas rush because of the obvious fanboy interest, helped by the fact that every young male is out of school and can indulge his cultural need to see films like this first. So Hollywood and even Disney had been expecting a weekend of at least $50M. "Depends how good it is," one rival studio exec snarked. It may underperform; remember that Friday's number opened to $3.6M from midnight screenings, including over $1 million from 228 IMAX theaters. (I'm told that's by far the biggest percentage -- 25+% -- done of any movie's midnight box office, and more than the percentage of midnight take by IMAX for Iron Man 2, Inception, Avatar. But note that's not the highest IMAX gross.) With a budget estimated as $150M, and a global marketing push estimated at another $120M, Tron: Legacy 3D benefitted from a ton of pre-sales. For instance, going into this weekend, Tron 2 accounted for 67% of Thursday’s sales on big online seller MovieTickets.com. Globally, Tron 2 is opening in 26 international markets (Australia, Brazil, Japan, Scandinavia, Spain, UK, etc.) representing about 50% of the marketplace. Disney arranged for “Tron Night” at 520 theaters in 40 countries, with premiere events in Tokyo, London, Los Angeles and Berlin (in January 2011). Not only did Tron 2 open the Tokyo International Film Festival, but key buildings in Osaka, Nagoya, and Yokohama were covered in blue Tron lights, while in Toronto the CN Tower was similarly lit up. Disney's consumer products division came onboard. The studio even used its newly purchased Marvel to push the pic: a 2-issue comic book limited series, "Tron: Betrayal" grqaphic novel was sold under the Tron name. Meanwhile, the film's soundtrack from Walt Disney Records produced by the Grammy Award-winning French duo Daft Punk hit #1 on Amazon, became iTunes single of the week, and debuted at #10 on the Billboard Top 200 -- the first score soundtrack to debut in the Top 10 in five years. . Click Here for more info.
Bank of America Corp. has joined several other financial institutions in refusing to handle payments for WikiLeaks.
The Charlotte-based bank released a statement saying it will no longer process any transactions that it believes are intended for the site, which has released thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
"This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said. The action comes as WikiLeaks says it plans to release information about banks. The site's founder has previously said it has a trove of documents on Bank of America.
Other financial institutions, including MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Inc., have also stopped handling payments for WikiLeaks, moves which hurt the site's ability to accept donations and support publishing efforts. The websites of some companies that have cut ties with WikiLeaks have come under cyber attack in recent weeks by hackers who support its mission.
Reached by phone, Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri declined further comment to The Associated Press on Saturday.
WikiLeaks responded to Bank of America's announcement with a Twitter message urging supporters to stop doing business with the bank.
"We ask that all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America," WikiLeaks said in its posting Saturday. It also called on businesses to switch funds from the bank.
In an interview with CNBC on Friday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organization has plans to soon release information about banks, and he told Forbes magazine last month that the data would show "unethical practices." . Click Here for more info.
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A Jefferson City man is being held by authorities Saturday after fatally shooting his wife in a restaurant Friday night.
According to police reports, Keith Kellner, 47, was being held in the Cole County Jail on one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed criminal action.
At about 8:15 p.m. Friday, the Jefferson City Police Communications Center began receiving numerous calls of a shooting at McDonalds, located at 1918 Jefferson St. Officers responded to the scene and found that the victim, Pamela M. Kellner, 44, of Jefferson City, had been shot once in the chest. Officers began lifesaving efforts and EMS responded.
According to witnesses, the shooter, identified as Keith had been speaking with Pamela in a booth at McDonalds when one shot from a handgun was heard.
Witnesses said Pamela grabbed her chest and asked for police assistance, claiming she had been shot
Pamela, who was employed part-time by McDonalds, was taken to Capital Region Medical Center where she was pronounced dead a short time later.. Click Here for more info.
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Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has ruled out closing a state prison to help close Missouri’s budget gap. But he says more cuts are possible to state jobs, higher education and certain public school programs.
Nixon outlined some of his budget priorities Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. Nixon’s administration has said Missouri is facing a shortfall of between $500 million and $700 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Nixon says he hopes to be able to keep basic aid for K-12 schools at the same level as this year. But he says state money specifically targeted toward school busing is on “the watch list” of things that could be cut, along with funding for public colleges and universities.
Asked Thursday whether he will seek re-election, Nixon told The Associated Press: “Yea.” Click Here for more info.
Retirement savers have already learned how much damage the markets can do to a nest egg. But for anyone with a 401(k) plan, stock market performance may be overshadowed by other worries: fraud and theft.
In the last three months, the Labor Department has launched 191 investigations into 401(k) fraud and theft, and secured 20 indictments — a whopping 43% more than the department has secured annually, on average, since 1995. The millions at stake in recent cases may seem small in the context of the $3 trillion 401(k) market, but observers say the indictments point to larger issues in the 401(k) marketplace, from lack of oversight and an understaffed enforcement agency to the larger risks that have shifted over time to individual participants. The cases, says Brandon Reese, deputy director of the office of investment at the AFL-CIO, "expose a more systemic problem in the defined contribution retirement system."
The Labor Department beefed up its enforcement efforts this fall in response to growing indications of trouble with retirement plans. There were more reports of fraud, said Phyllis Borzi, the assistant secretary of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the division of the DOL that's leading the charge. There were more cases where the perpetrators apparently intended to keep the stolen money, as opposed to the more sympathetic case of a struggling business owner juggling funds to meet immediate business needs. And the department is seeing more repeat offenders — perpetrators who have raided employee benefits plans two or three times before, says Jeffrey Hinman, EBSA's deputy director for criminal enforcement. These, and other "badges of fraud," like behavior that went on for a long time, or a perpetrator who lied to employees about what was happening with the plan, make a criminal case, as opposed to a civil one, he says.
Given the recent economic climate, the increase in cases is not entirely surprising. In tough times, employers are more likely to raid their employees' retirement funds, observers say, whether for personal gain, or to stretch to cover business expenses. This is especially true at small, private companies, where 401(k) plans are often run by a single person, like the company's president or accounts manager. "In a larger setting, you have more eyes on the plan," says David Certner, legislative policy director for the AARP. Publicly-traded companies also face stricter regulation on their accounting procedures under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The Labor Department's investigations touch fewer than one out of every 2,600 of the 401(k) plans nationwide, and an even smaller fraction of the 60 million participants. It seems so small to some that the department has been criticized for spending time and money on such cases.
Warning Signs So what does it take to catch a 401(k) thief? It's easy — if you check your account balance regularly and read the statements you get in the mail, says Scott Holsopple, the president of Smart401k, a web-based retirement service for retirement plans. Make sure you know how much money should be flowing into your account and how it's supposed to be invested. "If you're actively involved, it's going to be a lot harder for your employer to take money from you," Holsopple says.
The Labor Department's top 10 warning signs: 1. Your 401(k) or individual account statement is consistently late or comes at irregular intervals 2. Your account balance does not appear to be accurate 3. Your employer failed to transmit your contribution to the plan on a timely basis 4. A significant drop in account balance that cannot be explained by normal market ups and downs 5. 401(k) or individual account statement shows your contribution from your paycheck was not made 6. Investments listed on your statement are not what you authorized 7. Former employees are having trouble getting their benefits paid on time or in the correct amounts 8. Unusual transactions, such as a loan to the employer, a corporate officer or one of the plan trustees 9. Frequent and unexplained changes in investment managers or consultants 10. Your employer has recently experienced severe financial difficulty . Click Here for more info.
