Peanut Butter News

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Why use our money to give bonuses. Get the banks back on their feet first. America is the only place that lets these places have a vacation with our money instead of first fixing the problem. We as citizens can’t do that. They would put us in jail for miss using the money we would get. These people just don’t care as long as their live stile does not change.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s pay czar said Friday that 17 banks receiving taxpayer money from the $700 billion financial bailout made “ill-advised” payments to their executives. But he stopped short of calling them “contrary to the public interest,” language that would have signaled a fight to get it back.

Kenneth Feinberg also said he did not try to recoup $1.6 billion in lavish compensation to top executives at the bailed-out banks because he wanted to protect the banks from possible lawsuits from shareholders trying to recapture the executives’ money.

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MCKINNEY, Texas — Ben Sater had vowed that before he went off to college, he would raise $1 million for the Dallas children’s hospital where he had received free treatments as a child.

After eight years’ worth of fundraising golf tournaments for kids, the soon-to-be Austin College freshman has reached the goal, with nearly $19,000 to spare.

Organizers announced Monday that they’ve raised $1,018,842 for Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, an orthopedic center that treats patients free of charge.

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DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. — Fireworks displays have been canceled. White-sand beaches that should be crowded with sunbathers are instead dotted with cleanup workers, booms and sand-sifting equipment. Normally packed hotels are trying to fill rooms ahead of what is a crucial weekend for beach businesses.

Across the oil-stained Gulf Coast, it’s going to be a glum Fourth of July.

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ON BARATARIA BAY, La. — While oil companies have spent billions of dollars to drill deeper and farther out to sea, relatively little money and research have gone into finding new, improved ways to respond to oil spills in deepsea conditions like those in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts say the massive Gulf spill has exposed a failure by the industry and the federal government to commit adequate resources to oil cleanup and response technology.

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CASA GRANDE, Ariz. – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.

Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay.

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WASHINGTON – President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

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NEW ORLEANS – Oil from the worst spill in U.S. history could soon end up at gas stations, construction sites and even grocery stores once BP sells the crude taken from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico to raise money for wildlife protection.

Energy giant BP announced this week it will donate its share of the proceeds generated by selling the oil captured from the well to fund efforts to protect and restore wildlife habitat along the Gulf Coast.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — For the nation’s unemployed, here we go again.

The House voted Friday to extend the deadline to file for federal unemployment benefits, but not before the Senate recessed for a week-long Memorial Day break. So jobless Americans will start running out of benefits after June 2.

Full Story at gnn.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (MAY 17) — Country music singers Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum joined other entertainment stars in performing and answering phones to help raise more than $1.5 million for flood relief for Tennessee.
“If there is a silver lining, it’s that the world is getting to see Nashville at its best through this tragedy,” Paisley said during the telethon Sunday on the GAC Network.
Paisley kicked off the telethon with an energized version of his song “Welcome to the Future.” When he finished, he looked into the audience where his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, was standing as the show’s co-host.

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Now we might know exactly why Ronald McDonald might get axed by McDonald’s Corp.(MCD). The company could use the money to pay it’s CEO, Jim Skinner.

Dow Jones Newswires, via Chicago Breaking Business, reports that CEO Skinner received $17.6 million in compensation for 2009, representing a 30% increase over the previous year.

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WASHINGTON – Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits.

Some of the options are politically dangerous, such as increasing payroll taxes or reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Others, such as gradually raising the age when retirees qualify for full benefits, wouldn’t be felt for years but would affect millions.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Missouri man who won a $258 million Powerball jackpot says he hasn’t decided yet if he’ll quit his job at the convenience store where he bought the winning ticket.

Chris Shaw — a 29-year-old tattooed father of three who was raised by his grandparents in rural southern Missouri — came forward Thursday as the winner of the 10th-largest Powerball jackpot ever.