There are at least 6 theories about why the stock market has rallied some 70% off its lows a year ago, even though nothing has been done to actually address the root causes of the financial crisis.

Tulsa's sales-tax revenue this month dropped 11.6 percent or about $2 million from March 2009, capping off 12 straight months of negative numbers.

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Talk about adding insult to injury.

A bogus Web site is targeting victims of Bernard Madoff's record Ponzi scheme in an apparent identity-theft scam, the Securities Investor Protection Corp warned today.

The site claims that $1.3 billion in Madoff money was recently found hidden in Malaysia, and displays photos of huge stacks of cash allegedly stashed by the mega-crook.

The so-called "International Securities Investor Protection Corporation" urges burned investors to submit claims by filling out an online form and mailing in a copy of "your most recent brokerage account statement."

Chevron Corp., the second largest U.S. oil company, announced on Tuesday that it would cut 2,000 jobs this year amid challenging market conditions.

The head of the International Monetary Fund on Monday proposed a plan for the world's governments to pool together to raise money needed to adapt to climate change, a rare step for an organization that normally does not develop environmental policies.

The city's latest sales tax revenue check is down 17.9 percent from this time a year ago and marks the worst showing since December 2008.

Ford Motor Credit Co. plans to layoff 200 employees at its business center in Franklin by the end of March as part of a plan to cut 1,000 jobs nationwide this year.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court is laying off 329 staff members next month and officials say more than 1,000 others may go in the next two years because of budget cuts.

Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson warns:

"We're running out of time ... to prevent a true depression." He says unless we break Wall Street's "stranglehold" we will be unable prevent the Great Depression 2.

Morgan Stanley research guru turned hedge fund manager Barton Biggs (pictured), who called the market rally, advises that you buy a farm a good distance away from a city and, he advises, make sure that your doomsday safe-haven:

* Be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food
* Be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc

And get a gun, he says, because "a few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage."

Unless there is a fundamental change in the way Toledo's government operates, the city will likely be unable to pay its employees before the year is through, a top official in the Bell administration warned.

The Shawnee Mission School Board discussed budget cuts in the district for the 2010-11 school year and faces cutting $10.1 million and up to 128 jobs.

Superintendent Gene Johnson shared his proposed budget cuts with the school board Monday in a meeting at Shawnee Mission West High School.

"We need teachers, parents and the community to work together," parent Cathy Cook said to the board.

The percentage of American workers with virtually no retirement savings grew for the third straight year, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey. That excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans.

Furthermore, if anyone was merely looking at the trading action in regular hours, one would think there was absolutely no profit made since early September. The reason for that: all the upside since September 14th has come exclusively from after hours action.

Every single day, minimal volume pushes the futures index higher. Good news, bad news, it don’t matter to the Goldman S&P and Russell 1000 futures desk: they just lift every micro offer, giving the impression that the market is unstoppable, often leapfrogging each other as the latest viagra’ed GDP or unemployment rumor is spread.

The national recession has had such a devastating effect on state finances that states took in $87 billion less in tax revenue from October 2008 through September 2009 than they collected in the previous 12 months. This 11 percent decline, the steepest on record, resulted from the impact on tax collections of lost jobs, reduced wages, and lowered economic activity.

To recoup lost revenue, states have taken such actions as eliminating tax exemptions, broadening tax bases, and in some cases increasing rates as well as raising a number of fees.

The latest state income tax payments to local governments fell $61.8 million year over year, piling new fiscal woes atop budgets already reeling from state cuts, high snow removal costs and earlier revenue declines.

The Bell administration plans to begin sending up to 300 layoff notices to city employees next week in case it cannot balance a $48 million deficit through union concessions and other measures, a top city official said Monday.

Police officers are being called in to protect a Maryland mayor Monday night as he gets ready to announce layoffs of 10 percent of city workers.

here are new signs that Vermont's economy is not coming out of the recession as quickly as anticipated.

The Douglas Administration says an unexpected drop in state revenues over the last two months means that there will need to be more cuts in next year's budget.

The governor and the speaker both said that higher education cuts would depend on February revenue figures. If so, we are in now in trouble. Just received the bad news e-mail from the governor’s office that revenues are down 9.9 percent for the month, which is worse than what had been expected.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.

In the nearly three years since Nevada's economy crashed, lawmakers have scrapped together a patchwork of temporary fixes to the state budget, hoping an eventual recovery would rescue them from being forced to make permanent choices on how they tax and what they spend.

But the economy didn't get better. It got worse.

Michigan public schools will lay off thousands of employees and more than 100 districts could be insolvent if the state doesn’t find a way to plug a $400-per-pupil funding shortfall in funding next year.

International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn today called for a huge global warming slush fund to be established as an interim measure before carbon taxes are implemented in the name of preventing weather disasters related to alleged man-made climate change.

Britain is "prepared to be flexible" to reach a deal with Iceland over the £2.3bn debt owed since the collapse of the online savings bank Icesave, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, said yesterday.

It could almost be a battle from Greece's ancient past - a melee of fighting at close quarters with shields, raised weapons and flags.

But this was the scene in Athens yesterday as riot police clashed with protesters outraged by cutbacks designed to slash the country's huge budget deficit.

The violence came as Germany ruled out offering Greece 'a cent' of financial aid, insisting it should sort out it own problems.

Iceland’s voters expressed their outrage on Saturday against bankers, the government and what they saw as foreign bullying, overwhelmingly rejecting a plan to pay $5.3 billion to Britain and the Netherlands to reimburse customers of a failed Icelandic bank, Sarah Lyall reported in The New York Times.

With about 98 percent of the votes counted Sunday, roughly 93 percent of voters said no to the plan, in the first public referendum ever held on any subject in Iceland. Less than 2 percent voted yes, and the rest of the votes were invalid.

But the referendum was more symbolic than substantive, and the Icelandic government hastened to make clear that Iceland would still pay back the money, albeit on different terms from the ones rejected.

The Federal Reserve has won its battle to maintain singular regulatory oversight of America's major financial institutions, the Financial Times reported Sunday night.

Iceland's economic and political future hangs in the balance as it heads towards a referendum on how to compensate Britain and the Netherlands for money lost in the collapse of an Icelandic bank.

Still furious over the crippling aftermath of the global financial crisis, Iceland's voters on Saturday resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic Internet bank, according to initial results.

Results returned from around 83,500 ballots — or more than 40 percent of the total ballots expected — counted so far showed that 93 percent of voters said "no" in the referendum, compared to just 1.5 percent who said "yes."

Every single day, minimal volume pushes the futures index higher. Good news, bad news, it don’t matter to the Goldman S&P and Russell 1000 futures desk: they just lift every micro offer, giving the impression that the market is unstoppable, often leapfrogging each other as the latest viagra’ed GDP or unemployment rumor is spread.

Come morning, it is time for the HFT brigade to come in and scalp their trillions of pennies while leaving the market unchanged, then at 4pm handing it off again to leveraged futures manipulation and dark pools. In a nutshell, this is the secret of the past quarter’s phenomenal market performance.

Last week was marked by two significant developments. A strike wave hit Europe as workers in a series of countries began to demonstrate their opposition to the austerity measures demanded by the European Union and the banks.

The head of China’s central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual.

Voters in tiny Iceland defied their parliament and international pressure, resoundingly rejecting a $5.3 billion plan to repay Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic bank.

The American financial press cheered on Friday when “only” 36,000 jobs were lost in February. This if you haven’t noticed now passes for good economic news. The unemployment rate remained unchanged because the actual workforce continued to show a decline yet Wall Street somehow viewed this as positive developments. And why not? The middle class is under assault from every angle. Things are so twisted with propaganda that many Americans now believe that the banking elite are actually looking out for the well being of American workers.

Future head of Conservatives' public spending watchdog says 'efficiency savings' alone will not save frontline services.

Indeed, with global investors attacking any sovereign government that’s running massive deficits or stuck with a pile of bad debts …

And with Uncle Sam obviously the world’s greatest debtor, beggar and fiat money printer …

Some folks at the Treasury Department now fear the United States could be the next victim.

So they’re scrambling to get rid of at least SOME of the junk they piled up during the great bailout frenzy of 2009.

"As the Obama Administration works up its 12,487th plan for keeping underwater homeowners in their homes, Arizona’s legislation may have the courage and good sense to do the obvious: let foreclosed homeowners stay in their home as renters. A bill was just introduced in legislature that would allow homeowners in houses that sell for less than the median price to remain in their home as renters for at least one year following foreclosure.

Iceland’s voters expressed their outrage on Saturday against bankers, the government and what they saw as foreign bullying, overwhelmingly rejecting a plan to pay $5.3 billion to Britain and the Netherlands to reimburse customers of a failed Icelandic bank.

With about 30 percent of the votes counted, roughly 93 percent of voters said no to the plan, in the first public referendum ever held on any subject in Iceland. Less than 2 percent voted yes, and the rest of the votes were invalid.