Amazon is planning to open its first retail location some time in the next few months, Good E-Reader reports.

The store, which will be more of a boutique, will sell Amazon-created products like Kindles and Amazon Exclusives, their in-house publishing line.

Amazon Exclusives have been a topic of debate lately, with Barnes and Noble and a few other large chains saying they won't sell the books in-store (though they would online).

With Barnes and Noble struggling to retool to compete with Amazon — and their retail locations being one of their greatest assets — this could hurt B&N even further if it's successful enough to roll out on a larger scale.

More so than that, Amazon is taking another page from Apple's playbook. Apple's retail stores introduced customers to its products at a time when they were being ignored. Amazon can use its stores to get people familiar with the Kindle Fire, and anything else Amazon is planning to release down the road.

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• Amazon Blows Q4, Stock Plunges 9% After Hours
• Key Windows Phone Leader Goes To Amazon
• Why Amazon's Tablet Business Is Nowhere Near As Good As Apple's (Yet)

Here's a puzzle. We'd like your input on it.

In a speech today (.pdf), St. Louis Fed President James Bullard argues against the notion of an "output gap."

Specifically he slams the idea that the economy could or should be operating at anywhere near the level it was in 2007.

This chunk of his speech is a few paragraphs, but it's worth reading closely, because on the surface he makes a very logical argument.

The key to the large output gap story is the use of the fourth quarter of 2007 as a benchmark for where we expect the economy to be today. The idea is to take that level of real output, assume the real GDP growth rate that prevailed in the years prior to 2007, and project out where the “potential” output of the U.S. should be. By that type of calculation, we are indeed stunningly far below where we should be, perhaps 5.5 percent below, using data through the fourth quarter of 2011.3    What is more, we have made little progress in closing the gap defined in this way, because real GDP has only grown at modest rates since the recession ended in the summer of 2009. And furthermore, using current GDP forecasts from, say, the Blue Chip consensus, we have little prospect for closing the gap any time soon.

Is this really the right way to think about where the U.S. economy should be? I do not think it is a defensible point of view. Let me give you some of my perspectives.

Most analysts seem to agree that the middle part of the 2000s was characterized by a “bubble” in the housing sector. Housing prices were high and rising fast compared to nominal GDP. It is not prudent to extrapolate a bubble into the indefinite future and claim that such a calculation provides a good benchmark. Yet, that is what we are doing when we extrapolate fourth quarter 2007 real GDP.

Furthermore, we normally have the good sense not to do this in other economic situations.

Think about the tech bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The NASDAQ index peaked at about 4800 on a monthly average basis in March 2000. In the month just passed, January 2012, it averaged about 2744, which is 57 percent of its peak value. In fact, with the type of calculation usually done for real GDP, which extrapolates growth rates, the NASDAQ would be miles below its “potential.” Of course, most observers and market participants do not say that the NASDAQ is far below its potential value today. Instead, most say that there was clearly a bubble in the NASDAQ during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and that today’s valuations are more sensible than the ones that were in vogue during the bubble period.

When I put the case this starkly, I think many would agree that establishing a benchmark by extrapolating from the previous peak of a variable, when that variable was clearly influenced by a bubble, is a mistake. It gives a distorted view of the situation.'

Again, this sounds right: It doesn't make sense to extrapolate from the peak of a bubble.

There's just one problem: There doesn't appear to have been much of a bubble at all in the mid-2000s.

Here's a look at annual GDP growth going back aways. Notice anything? The growth throughout the 2000-era bubble was really mediocre by historical standards. Certainly it was far worse than the 90s. It doesn't look on the surface like this was some go-go bubble time.

But on the other hand, the housing bubble does seem to have been pretty real.

Here's GDP vs. annual house price growth. House prices did grow very rapidly in the 2000s.

Now here's one more chart to muddy the picture a little bit.

It shows GDP vs. house prices vs. annual growth in retail sales.

As you can see, retail sales -- the green line -- did grow faster than GDP during the 2000s, but it wasn't growing as fast as home prices were, and it actually grew slower than during the 90s. So it's actually hard to argue the conventional wisdom, that homeowners, were going crazy on credit cards and their household ATMs buying flat-screen TVs and everything else under the soon. Basically, nothing looks abnormal on either spending or GDP growth during that time. If anything, it was pretty subdued.

The bottom line: Bullard's argument that we don't want to peg our expectations to 2007, because 2007 was such a craaaazy time does not seem based in fact.

But one thing we're curious about is: Okay, why wasn't there a bubble? Why didn't GDP and spending grow alongside the booming home prices?

Because it's not like the home price boom didn't have an effect.

Check out this chart of growth in household balance sheets.

As you can see, household balance sheets DID grow like crazy during the 2000s.

It's just that again -- household balance sheet growth -- was way faster than actual GDP growth.

So two takeaways:

• Growth in the mid-2000s doesn't seem so wild as to believe we shouldn't aim to re-achieve that trendline.
• The connection between bubbles (even big ones) and growth isn't all that strong. We're not clear why.

Any guesses on the latter?

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• RITHOLTZ: A Housing Bottom? You've Got To Be Kidding
• Only One Housing Market In America Saw Prices Gain In November...
• UPDATED, CORRECTED: The DC Market Is Still Kicking Your Housing Market's Butt

Manchester United played Chelsea live on Fox yesterday. It was only the second time a Barclays Premier League game had been broadcast live on network U.S. television.

In the pre- and post-game chatter, the pundits mentioned every plausible angle and implication of the game, with one major exception.

No one talked about the controversy surrounding the fiscal handling of Manchester United by their American owners, the Glazer family, and how it prompted Goldman Sach's Jim O'Neill to lead a group of wealthy investors to try to buy the team in 2010.

Manchester United is a club with working class roots that's built a tradition of success

The club we now know as Manchester United was founded as Newton Heath L&YR Football Club in 1878. The founders were workers at the Carriage and Wagon Works of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Newton Heath train depot.

The clubs colors were green and gold. 

In 1901, the club was facing bankruptcy and was bailed out by a local brewer, John Henry Davies. Davies changed the club's name to Manchester United in 1902.

The team achieved great success in the late forties through the sixties under manager Matt Bubsy.

Source: Manchester United FC 

In 1986, Alex Ferguson took over as manager in a bid to re-establish that success at the team

Manchester United's modern-era is defined by the reign of manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson took over as manager having lead the previously marginal Scottish team Aberdeen in 1983. 

Since joining in 1986, Ferguson has won almost 40 major trophies for Manchester United and the team has dominated the Premier League since its formation in 1992, winning the competition 12 times. 

Source: Manchester United FC

It worked and success became the norm again at Manchester United

Manchester United have also won Europe's top club competition, the Champions League twice under Ferguson. His time at the club has seen internationally recognized stars such as David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo play for the club.

And while such statements are deeply divisive in the tribal world of British soccer, it can be argued that that Manchester United have been the most successful British team of the 1990s and 2000s. Other contenders for that distinction are Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. Liverpool are United's fiercest rivals and historically the most successful team in England.

Source: Manchester United FC

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See Also:

• Guess Which Wall Street Bank Showed President Obama The Most Love Last Quarter
• Goldman Sachs Employees Have Donated How Much Money To Mitt Romney?!
• A Top Goldman Sachs Trader Left The Firm To Build A Russian Sauna In New Jersey

Days after an online protest forced Sallie Mae to drop a $50 penalty against unemployed borrowers, the private lender has apparently been scrubbing its Facebook and Twitter pages clean of consumer backlash.

The lender buckled on Thursday under pressure from the 100,000 signature-strong protest, which called for an end to the fee.

Rather than completely do away with the fee, which went directly to the lender's pockets, Sallie Mae agreed to apply the cash to students' loan repayments instead.

That wasn't good enough for some protesters, who flocked to Sallie Mae's UPromise Facebook page over the weekend. 

Along with their comments, Sallie Mae seems to have rid its wall of at least two personal posts by students sharing their troubles repaying loans. 

Sallie Mae hasn't responded to a request for comment, but here's an example of a post before and after the lender deleted negative comments. In this case, commenters didn't seem to be posting anything all that inflammatory, but did call for the lender to drop the fee.

Before

After

See more screenshots of deleted posts here, courtesy of Change.org.

“It’s not surprising that the same company that callously disregards borrowers’ current financial difficulties would also disregard borrowers’ ability to speak freely about those usurious practices,” Stef Gray, the college graduate who launched the protest, said in a statement Monday. “They may have silenced us on Facebook, but it won’t stop us from continuing to speak out against the unemployment penalty they continue to charge.”

Organizers of the protest claim the lender is also blocking users who post negative comments on Twitter. 

This isn't the first online campaign that's pressured major companies to backpedal on unpopular consumer fees. Similar Change.org petitions helped ward off Bank of America's $5 debit fee and Verizon Wireless's $2 convenience charge last year. 

Read 9 stories from college students rocked by private student loan debt >

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• Student Protest Forces Sallie Mae To Alter $50 Fee Against Unemployed Borrowers
• Hold Off Before You Jump On The Facebook Bandwagon
• This Woman Is Facing Charges For Allegedly Duping Investors Into Buying Phony Shares Of Facebook

Whales, abusing contractors, and pushing metrics.

That's pretty much all Zynga is about, according to a former engineer.

An ex-engineer who was there about six months ago is opening up on an "ask-me-anything" question and answer thread in Reddit.

The employee apparently left the company because he (or she) didn't like the direction it was moving in — focusing on metrics and expansion rather than actual gameplay.

As usual, this is an ex-engineer that left the company because he or she wasn't satisfied — so take the claims with a grain of salt. 

Here are some of the other highlights from the thread. Some of this is already suspected to be true:

• Zynga's "whales," who spend more than $10,000 on its games, are labeled "Zynga Black." One Mafia Wars "whale" has spent around $100,000. They are the "hardcore" crowd Zynga caters to, and every other player is treated as a spammer.

• The engineer said, "They are trying to make their own social network for games. Steam is their main competitor in that realm." We've known Zynga is working on its own site for its social games, but that comment suggests Zynga could run other companies' games instead of just their own on the network. 

• Product Managers rely on metrics more for office politics, not science, not game design. Zynga is a marketing company, not a games company.

• The amount of code for analyzing metrics "dwarfs" the size of the game's production code.

• Zynga has special access to Facebook's API news — basically, when Facebook will make changes to the way it works — and fewer restricitons on "spamming."

• Contract workers have almost no feedback or say on their work schedule, and aren't welcome to company events.

We've reached out to Zynga, who hasn't commented on the response just yet.

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See Also:

• Zynga's Shares Are Skyrocketing After Facebook Revealed Its Addiction To Farmville
• The Makers Of Farmville Accounted For 12% Of Facebook's Revenue Last Year
• MARK ZUCKERBERG IS WORTH ~$25 BILLION

Germany's former spy chief is now working for Deutsche Bank, according to a report by Der Spiegel.

Ernst Uhrlau, 65, who retired as head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND, has been employed as a freelance "global risk analyst" at the bank since the beginning of February, only two months after his retirement, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank confirmed, according to The Local.

His appointment has been cleared by Ronald Pofalla, chief of staff at the German chancellery, Abendblatt reports.

Uhrlau spent six years as president of the BND, and was also the secret service coordinator for the German government.

The ex-spy chief is perhaps best known for authorizing the purchase of personal data of suspected tax evaders from people who had stolen the information from foreign banks, particularly Swiss ones. One of the high-profile victims of the move was Klaus Zumwinkel, erstwhile head of Germany’s postal service, who was fined €1 million and given a two-year suspended sentence in 2009.

Uhrlau is not the first high-ranking government official Deutsche Bank has employed. Former Deputy Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser became vice-chairman of the Deutsche Bank Group in 2006.

This spate of hiring former government personnel by private institutions has come under fire from Transparency International, which argues that at least three years should pass before employment or consulting positions are assumed by such people, according to Tagesschau.

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• The Strange Story Of The Tongan Winter Olympian Who Turned Out To Be A German Marketing Gimmick
• The EU Is Probing Samsung Over Its Patent War With Apple
• LISTEN: Newly Discovered Recordings By Thomas Edison Allow You To Finally Hear Otto Von Bismarck Talk

Remember when HTC was the hot Android phone maker? Those days appear to be over.

Ryan Kim at GigaOm reports:

In the first quarter, HTC said it was expecting revenue of between 65 billion and 70 billion Taiwanese dollars or $2.20-2.37 billion, which could amount to as much as a 36 percent drop from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected HTC to generate $89.64 billion or $3.04 billion in revenue this quarter. HTC had previously released unaudited results for the fourth quarter but the forecast raised new concerns for HTC as it looks to regain its momentum.

...

“Our weakness in first-quarter guidance also comes from facing competition in the U.S. from iPhone and Samsung,” said Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung said on a conference call. “LTE handsets also didn’t meet our expectations.”

Read the whole thing at GigaOm →

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• THE APPLE INVESTOR: Apple Pushes To Become Third Largest Handset Maker In The World
• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Motorola Sells One Million Tablets All Last Year
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Gerard Depardieu, the veteran French actor, will play Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a film about the sex scandals that have plagued him, The Telegraph reports.

The film will be directed by American Abel Ferrara ('Bad Lieutenant', 'King of New York'), and will star French actress Isabelle Adjani as DSK's wife Anne Sinclair. No word yet on who will play Nafissatou Diallo, the maid who accused Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in his New York hotel room.

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• Sh*t Sarkozy Says: The 14 Best Quotes From France's Pugnacious President
• WATCH: This French Presidential Hopeful Got Flour-Bombed At A Rally
• Marine Le Pen May Not Be Able To Compete In The French Election

Business Insider is looking for a proactive, articulate and energetic Sales Development Associate to join our sales organization in New York.

The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of digital advertising and will be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment.  

Responsibilities Include:

• Work with sales to respond to RFPs by creating proposals that meet client objectives
• Brainstorm integrated ideas and sponsorships 
• Develop cross-platform programs including, events, mobile, video and social media
• Coordinate the on-time delivery of client proposals
• Assist in the creation of effective sales and marketing tools, including sell sheets, presentations and/or mockups 

Qualifications/Experience:

• 1-3 years experience as a digital media planner at an agency, digital media company or publisher
• Exceptional attention to detail and organizational skills
• Ability to meet deadlines in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
• Excellent verbal and written presentation skills
• Proficient with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint
• Experience with Photoshop and web analytics tools such as @Plan and Comscore
• Understanding of social media and extensive web knowledge required -- in other words, this is one of the rare jobs where tweeting and being a Facebook power user are advantages!

Interested? Please send resume to salesjobs@businessinsider.com with subject "Sales Development" Thanks in advance.

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• WRITERS WANTED: Jump-Start Your Career By Interning At Business Insider
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For the most part, Apple has an adversarial relationship with the press.

It doesn't answer to inquiries, and it doesn't make its executives available for interviews or comments unless it's a major issue.

However, there are exceptions to Apple's treatment of the press. Namely, Walt Mossberg and David Pogue get first-class treatment, according to Adam Lashinsky's book, Inside Apple.

Apple "actively caters to" Pogue and Mossberg, says Lashinsky.

For instance, a former iTunes engineer said he got a phone call at home because Pogue's Apple TV was crashing:

"They wanted me to go through the development logs of David Pogue's Apple TV. I'm like, 'You're kidding, right?' Because what happens is that when there's a fire, if you want to get it out as fast as possible, you call every single expert. Apple TV was getting ready to release and Apple is very concerned about public perception."

For more good stuff like this, go buy Inside Apple →

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• Apple's Super Secret TV Won't Launch In Q2
• THE APPLE INVESTOR: More Evidence That An Apple Television Is On Its Way
• Why Amazon's Tablet Business Is Nowhere Near As Good As Apple's (Yet)

Best Buy is asking web customers to take a survey about the Apple television, reports The Verge.

The survey refers to it as an "Apple HDTV" and includes the tagline "Apple finally reinvents what the television can do."

According to the survey, the television will run iOS, have support for iCloud, be controllable from your iPhone and iPad, and have access to third-party services like Netflix, YouTube, and Flickr.

The survey also says the television will include an iSight camera for FaceTime and Skype capabilities.

All this is allegedly built into a 42-inch form factor for $1,499.

This begs the question: is Best Buy speaking with knowledge, or is this speculation? Feel free to sound off in the comments.

In the meantime, check out all the Apple TV rumors we know about so far >

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• Here Are A Bunch Of New Apple TV Rumors You Need To Know About
• Whoa, Someone Has Leaked Info About The iPad 3!
• The Best Big-Name Games For Smartphones That Prove Nintendo Is Screwed

From robber barons to TV personalities, the world's billionaires didn't get rich without acquiring some wisdom along the way.

Thanks to MyComeUp.com for compiling some of the best billionaire quotes.

"Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1."

- Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

"When you live for others' opinions, you are dead."

- Carlos Slim Helu, CEO of Telmex, América Móvil, Grupo Carso

Source: MyComeUp

"I just love it when people say I can't do it, there's nothing that makes me feel better because all my life, people have said that I wasn't going to make it. "

- Ted Turner, Founder of CNN

Source: MyComeUp

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Clocking 10,000 tweets per second during its final three minutes, America's biggest advertising bonanza has come and gone. But there's life beyond Superbowl Sunday: you can get an entire day of intelligence on brand advertising tomorrow at Social Commerce Summit, Business Insider's major conference on the intersection of  digital commerce and social media. Tickets are still on sale. Brands speaking include:

• Heineken
• Johnson and Johnson
• Kate Spade
• Martha Stewart Living
• TicketMaster
• Time Warner Cable
• Walmart
• And More! Check out the Agenda for the full list.

And Social Commerce Summit isn't just about mega-brands. Incredible emerging companies, e-commerce market leaders, top investors, and publishers taking advantage of social commerce will also speak, including:

• Katia Beauchamp, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Birchbox
• Neil Blumenthal, Co-founder, Warby Parker
• Beth Collins Ellard, EVP & GM, DailyCandy
• Corby Fine, Sr. Director & GM, Audience Solutions and BD, Rogers Media
• Paul Lee, Partner, Lightbank
• Tim O'Shaughnessy, Co-founder & CEO, LivingSocial
• Brian Sugar, Co-founder & CEO, Sugar Inc
• See them all at the Speakers Page.

See you tomorrow!

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• What's All The Buzz About? Five Simple Ways To Understand Social Commerce
• As Facebook 'Kicks Off The Social Era,' Here's What You Need To Know About Social Commerce
• JOB OF THE WEEK: Bloomberg Digital

This post originally appeared at The Street.

Wall Street is jumping back into the risky $1.6 trillion "repo" market with some of the biggest U.S. banks -- including Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) -- leading the charge.

Shunned after the 2008 financial crisis after killing Lehman Brothers -- and nearly cutting General Electric's (GE) financial throat -- repos, or repurchase agreements, are enjoying a Wall Street renaissance, according to a report released Friday by Fitch Ratings.

"Since the peak of the U.S. financial crisis, risk appetite in the [repo] market is gradually recovering," Fitch said in its report. "Repo markets, once viewed as a relatively mundane utility within the financial system architecture, are the subject of growing public interest in "shadow" banking."

Read the rest of the story at The Street.

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• Throwing Down For Wall Street's Top Spot: Goldman Sachs Vs. J.P. Morgan
• The Proposed Robo-Mortgage Settlement Might Give Banks A Free Pass
• Economics Students Today Have Their Priorities Entirely Backward

Two weeks ago, Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman made a big pitch whilst hosting CNBC's Squawk Box for investors to come to his charitable Harbor Investment Conference—saying he would give an idea at the conference through which attendees could make back the ticket fare ($1,500) to the conference and much more at a very low risk. 

At the conference last Thursday, Ackman revealed the idea: it's Justice Holdings Limited, a "cash-shell" company with the sole purpose of finding a business to buy. Ackman started the company with Nicolas Berggruen (aka 'the homeless billionaire') and Martin Franklin last year and took it public, and Justice has raised around $1.4 billion from investors so far. The company trades under the ticket JUSH on the London Stock Exchange, and its founders took it public last year. Ackman himself owns a 30% stake in the company.

While Justice's co-founders find a business to buy, the money from investors is invested in UK short-term treasuries. The founders have given themselves three years to find a company to buy (they have two years left), and if they are unable to find a "smart" investment, then Justice Holdings will liquidate. Upon liquidation, investors will be paid a £10 dividend, so with the company is currently trading at around £8.6, stockholders are guaranteed a 7% compounded return—and that's the "downside," Ackman said. That 7% compounded return is better than holding money in a "zero percent money market account," Ackman said.

Justice Holdings itself appears to be a pet project between Ackman, Berggruen and Franklin—all three big names in the business and investment industry. Both Ackman and Berggruen have had successful buyout and takeover histories, and Franklin is a big name in the consumer goods business. Investors seemed to have reacted mildly to the Ackman's "idea"—JUSH was trading at around £8.4 when Ackman pitched it Thursday, and it is now trading at about £8.59.

And in case you've never heard of how fabulous Berggruen's life is, you should take a look here>>

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• Awkward: A Congressman Forgot To Thank Hedge Funder Bill Ackman For His $25 Million Donation To Charity
• This Is What Happens When Top Investors Release Their Best Ideas In Secret At A Conference
• Prosecutors Release Brand New Indictment With New Details In The Case Of Rajat Gupta

Two weeks ago, Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman made a big pitch whilst hosting CNBC's Squawk Box for investors to come to his charitable Harbor Investment Conference—saying he would give an idea at the conference through which attendees could make back the ticket fare ($1,500) to the conference and much more at a very low risk. 

At the conference last Thursday, Ackman revealed the idea: it's Justice Holdings Limited, a "cash-shell" company with the sole purpose of finding a business to buy. Ackman started the company—he owns a 30% stake—with Nicolas Berggruen (aka 'the homeless billionaire') and Martin Franklin last year before taking it public, and Justice has raised around $1.4 billion from investors so far. The company trades under the ticker JUSH on the London Stock Exchange.

While Justice's co-founders find a business to buy, the money from investors is invested in UK short-term treasuries. The founders have given themselves three years to find a company to buy (they have two years left), and if they are unable to find a "smart" investment, then Justice Holdings will liquidate. Berggruen's website says "Justice’s objective is to consummate a transaction of $5 billion to $10 billion in Total Enterprise Value."

Upon liquidation, investors will be paid a £10 dividend, so with the company currently trading at around £8.6, stockholders are guaranteed a 7% compounded return—and that's the "downside," according to Ackman. That 7% compounded return is better than holding money in a "zero percent money market account," Ackman said at the Harbor Investment Conference.

Justice Holdings appears to be a pet project between Ackman, Berggruen and Franklin—all three big names in the business and investment industry. Both Ackman and Berggruen have had successful buyout and takeover histories, and Franklin is a big name in the consumer goods business. Investors seemed to have reacted mildly to Ackman's "idea"—JUSH was trading at around £8.4 when Ackman pitched it Thursday, and it is now trading at about £8.59.

And in case you've never heard of how fabulous Berggruen's life is, learn about it here >>

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Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Awkward: A Congressman Forgot To Thank Hedge Funder Bill Ackman For His $25 Million Donation To Charity
• This Is What Happens When Top Investors Release Their Best Ideas In Secret At A Conference
• Prosecutors Release Brand New Indictment With New Details In The Case Of Rajat Gupta

One of the big issues standing in the way of banks and state attorney generals coming to a nationwide mortgage settlement has been the fact that New York and California — two big foreclosure states — have not been at the table.

Their participation means a larger settlement for everyone — Florida alone could see $500 million more alone if California participates. So this is a big deal to everyone.

Today though, it looks like this problem is about to be resolved. The New York Times is reporting that California AG Kamala Harris and New York AG Eric Schneiderman are getting sweeter on the deal. Just in time too — the deadline for the deal is today (then again, it was also technically Friday...).

Schneiderman and Harris have been holding out for a settlement that not only gets money for underwater homeowners, but also leaves banks exposed to more legal action. They're coming back around to the deal because negotiators are tightening provisions that would allow AGs to continue investigating past foreclosure misdeeds at banks.

After the law suite Schneiderman filed  for the state of New York against MERS (the mortgage registry system banks used), JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America on Friday, this should surprise absolutely no one. He's going after banks for the root causes of the crises, and that's going to take some intensive looking back.

Then there's looking forward — in this case, it's to the actual distribution of the settlement money. Harris and Schneiderman want more oversight to ensure that the people that need the money actually get it.

And in case you lost track, here are the numbers we're talking about (From the NYT):

....as it stands now the deal would set aside up to $17 billion specifically to pay for principal reductions and other relief for up to one million borrowers who are behind on their payments but owe more than their houses are currently worth. The deal would also provide checks for about $2,000 to roughly 750,000 who lost homes to foreclosure.Those figures are contingent upon the number who respond to the offer, which is likely to go to people who lost their homes between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2011.

In addition, said Patrick Madigan, the Iowa assistant attorney general, homeowners who participate in the settlement will still have the right to sue the banks for improper behavior in the foreclosure process.

 Now see if your state has one of the ten worst mortgage debts in America>>

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See Also:

• This Leaked Provision Of The Nationwide Mortgage Deal Could Have Banks Paying States Over And Over Again
• This Could Get Interesting: Private Equity Is Jumping Into The Distressed Housing Market
• This Woman's Awful Bank Of America Foreclosure Story Could Turn Into Another Viral PR Disaster

Conventional wisdom is probably useless from a direct investment standpoint, but there is value to knowing what conventional wisdom is. After all, that's how you can identify the deviations from it.

So, real quick, we thought we'd slice up the main nuggets of conventional wisdom right now based on what we've been seeing:

• The ECB, via the LTRO, has successfully backstopped European banks, and so a financial crisis now unlikely.
• Greece may or may not hard default, but either way, they're a lost cause...
• ... And after Greece comes Portugal. They're screwed too.
• But nobody else is in huge trouble, really.
• The biggest risk this year is in the Mideast, especially in dealing with Iran.
• Obama is the favorite to get re-elected, provided Europe doesn't blow up the US economy.
• The US economy will grow this year, but at a mediocre pace -- just like 2011, probably.
• China will slow a little bit this year, but won't crash.
• The US is staging the most impressive growth right now, as Europe/Asia still disappoint.
• There's a big risk of hard fiscal retrenchment in 2013...
• ... But Congress will step in and avoid the hard pain at the last second, like it always does.
• The US will basically have low rates forever.
• US equities are still in a secular bear market, and are priced for low returns.

Any objections or suggestions of what should be on the list?

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For the past year or so, Yahoo's turnaround has been FROZEN in place because its board feels like it has to to figure out away to "unlock" the value of the company's Asian assets for Yahoo shareholders. 

Yahoo owns big, multi-billion dollar stakes in two Asian Internet companies (Yahoo Japan in Japan and Alibaba in China). These are not considered "strategic" assets, so Yahoo is trying to sell its stakes back to the companies.

This is complicated to do because a normal sale would cost Yahoo 40% in taxes, knocking a couple billion off its market cap. So Yahoo is working on something called a cash-rich split. The Asian companies will actually buy some other operating business (WebMD? LivingSocial?) and then TRADE it to Yahoo for its Asian investments.

The truth is, until this happens, Yahoo is kind of stuck in neutral.

So when will it happen?

Here's where we get to the most deperessing thing you will read about Yahoo today.

Kara Swisher says the Asian assets deal won't close until…………2013.

Blah.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• RIP Yahoo Finance On Your BlackBerry
• Yahoo Could Pose A Problem For Facebook If It Tries To Enforce Its 1,000+ Patents
• CHART OF THE DAY: Hate To Be Rude, But Facebook Is Not The Next Google. It's Not Even Close

For the past year or so, Yahoo's turnaround has been FROZEN in place because its board feels like it has to figure out away to "unlock" the value of the company's Asian assets for Yahoo shareholders. 

Yahoo owns big, multi-billion dollar stakes in two Asian Internet companies (Yahoo Japan in Japan and Alibaba in China). These are not considered "strategic" assets, so Yahoo is trying to sell its stakes back to the companies.

This is complicated to do because a normal sale would cost Yahoo 40% in taxes, knocking a couple billion off its market cap. So Yahoo is working on something called a cash-rich split. The Asian companies will actually buy some other operating business (WebMD? LivingSocial?) and then TRADE it to Yahoo for its Asian investments.

The truth is, until this happens, Yahoo is kind of stuck in neutral.

So when will it happen?

Here's where we get to the most deperessing thing you will read about Yahoo today.

Kara Swisher says the Asian assets deal won't close until…………2013.

Blah.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• RIP Yahoo Finance On Your BlackBerry
• Yahoo Could Pose A Problem For Facebook If It Tries To Enforce Its 1,000+ Patents
• CHART OF THE DAY: Hate To Be Rude, But Facebook Is Not The Next Google. It's Not Even Close