Yes, and for all those who wondered, Mr. Dimon was allowed to retain total control as both Chairman and CEO of the TBTF J.P. Morgan bank.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100755287

So no problem whatsoever, apparently, despite the London Whale and other tricks.

Is there any explanation for the DNS and refusal of service from yesterday? It scared me a little bit.

I agree that the younger generation has it harder than we did, finding work after college, but how much of it is self-inflicted?

We have kids graduating college with degrees in philosophy and history. There’s not much market for that.

We have kids graduating college who won’t settle for the few entry level jobs there are, given that they are ‘entitled’ to make at least as much as someone with 5 – 10 years of experience just by walking in the door.

We have kids graduating college who have no clue how to interview for the positions that they want, however few they might be. They may be ‘expressing’ themselves with tattoos and piercings and the like, but many employers do not look favorably, since as an employee, the kid is the face of the organization. Too bad if it stunts your freedom of expression.

We have kids graduating college who have no critical thinking skills and can’t think farther ahead than to the next party.

Granted my experience is anecdotal, but I have two young ladies I am very familiar with who graduated within the last three to five years. Another young man I know graduated eight years ago.

One young lady had hopes of med school, but graduated with barely a C average. She is now working as a nurse in an urban hospital and is working her way through a Physician’s Assistant program. She is totally self-sustaining.

The other graduated with a degree in Communications (utterly worthless in this job market), but got an entry level sales job selling AARP style insurance by phone for one of the insurance companies. She stuck with it, hating it, for a year, but then was able to approach another insurance company for a job writing proposals for businesses looking for employer-based programs for their employees. She’s doing very well for only being out of school, going on three years. She is totally self-sustaining.

The young man majored in Accounting. He didn’t go to his college graduation because he was beginning his new job at an auditing firm the next day. Today, he holds a public sector job in a suburb of Detroit as Finance Director, after seven years of Public Auditing (working 80 hour weeks at crappy wages). He is totally self-sustaining.

Point is: the jobs are out there. Many of them aren’t advertised. I’m working for a client now in the midwest that is bringing in new folks all the time.

But the kids can’t expect to major in a no-brainer program, get mediocre grades, have no interviewing skills and a poor attitude and expect to find a job. Parents have a responsibility to take their investment in their kids’ college seriously. The kids have to bring something to the table to get hired in this market. It’s hard. Very hard.

”Fatigued by years of austerity and swayed by promises of debt relief, Icelandic voters dumped the Social Democrats from power on Saturday, returning a center-right government that ruled over its stunning financial collapse just five years ago.”

Meaning, I suppose, no one has the right answer??

And those are his good points.

I’m figuring, since it was Patriot Day and Income Tax day, that we probably have another Tim McVeigh here. Nothing would surprise me less than the perpetrator being some individual with a beef that has nothing to do with the Boston Marathon, but everything to do with being the quintessential a$$hole.

A great tradition in Boston, the marathon, now permanently scarred, in addition to the lives lost and changed forever.

Maybe I’m a Pollyanna or naive or something, but I have a different viewpoint of the current Obama budget. Now before you all shout me down as an Obama apologist, hear me out (I’ve a demented view of the world, but it could be helpful).

I’ve heard somewhere, maybe here, that Obama’s negotiation technique is very much like a chess game. He, like most chess players, knows his strategy several moves ahead of where he is in the game, so I’m told.

With every idea or proposal he has, the obstructionists have always shut him down. He has put ideas and proposals on the table that the obstructionists once supported, only to be shouted down as not being serious. The media, in its inability to be an actual fourth estate, has done an abysmal job of highlighting this track record, comparing the proposals he’s put forward and the obstructionists previous position that they then deny once he says ok to it.

The pattern seems to be Obama says it’s black and the obstructionists say it’s white. So he changes his tune to ok, it’s white, and the obstructionists say not so fast, it’s black. This is the game we’ve been subjected to since the beginning of the Obama administration (and it’s tiresome, we can all agree).

So now, he puts forward a budget proposal that includes much of what the obstructionists have insisted they can’t live without. Notice the reaction – oh, it’s not enough; oh, he can’t be serious. But if you compare the Obama proposal with much of what the obstructionists have been calling for (e.g., chained CPI, being the most obvious), now that he’s given it to him, it’s a bad thing.

The only solution is to get rid of the obstructionists, so we can get some serious government and less Alice in Wonderland in Washington.

Fatster,

As always, a wonderful round-up.

One thing I’ve noticed missing from just about all news reports is the on-going teachers’ strike in Strongsville, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. A very good friend lives in this town and has been linking stories on his FB page, but beyond that, I’m not seeing any other reports.

The deal is, the union is behaving in a very poor fashion, to the point of posting the names of substitute teachers working during the strike and threatening the subs. According to my friend, he’s saying the only media coverage is on Faux Noise, which has never been a proponent of unions. The outcome of this strike could well create another Wisconsin anti-union movement in Ohio.

I just find it incredible that all those on the Right were so absolutely certain Obama’s re-election would utterly destroy the economy and put us into a complete tailspin that would start before the inauguration.

Today, the market is at historic high levels, the sequester is in place, and we added just over 150,000 jobs in the last month.

I don’t know that the market will go to 36,000 – if it does, the market will be so incredibly over-valued as to be worthless. However, we certainly haven’t seen the economic Armageddon that was so breathlessly warned about for almost a year leading up to November 2012.

The market has already said it is ignoring the US government, which is probably what most of us should do. Ignoring the stupidity reduces one’s stress levels enormously.

The only problems I see with the two nominees for Energy and EPA (besides the fact that the GOP wants to eliminate the EPA entirely) is that they both believe in science and actually know something about the area in which they would serve, rather than coming in as career politicians.

Their nominations will fail on the basis of that alone, and that’s sad.

Rachel Maddow & Jon Stewart on Antonin Scalia, the Troll.

I didn’t have a problem with her referring to him as a troll. If the morons on Faux Noise had any familiarity with the internet, bomb-throwers like Scalia are typically referred to as ‘trolls’. H&ll, Faux Noise probably has several thousands of them on their payroll, based on how many of them I see on the websites I frequent.

It’s why I’m here every morning. The real news. Every day. MSM wouldn’t know a news story if it bit them in the butt. If it doesn’t involve a celebrity, MSM can’t cover it.

Just passing through, Fatster, as I do most every morning. I prefer reading your round-ups to off-set the lack of hard news in the media. Thanks for all your great work.

Counties in the central part of AZ declared natural disaster areas due to the drought include Apache, Maricopa, Navajo, Pinal, Yuma, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Pima and Yavapai. Farmers there are may be eligible for emergency government loans

Can’t have it both ways. If you don’t want to deal with federal regulations, you can’t get federal support. It’s time to stand up to those outliers that think government over-reach is only acceptable when the population benefits. With rights come responsibilities.

Family Research Council has bailed as well.

I don’t think this is going anywhere.

Family Research Council and FreedomWorks have both come out against Plan B, encouraging the House members to vote against it.

Two Conservative groups saying ‘no’ to Boehner and his half-baked idea. Not insignificant.