All Posts Tagged With: "jp morgan chase"
Top 4 best cities in America to find work
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Fri, Dec 25 2009 | 1 Comment
Unemployment has hit a nationwide average of just under 10% and it looks like a lot of places aren’t hiring, have implemented a hiring freeze, or are laying off a majority of its labor force. However, there are places all across the country where you can find work (usually) and you actually have a good chance of finding work in one of these cities.
1) Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, so much so that the population of the city is almost half of the total personal income for Alaska. The median age in the city is 33 and while the recession has hit the rest of the country pretty hard, in Anchorage the city marked it’s 20th year of job growth.
Twenty percent of the city’s jobs are in education, health services and government, all of which have increased the number of jobs for the past year. Big box retail stores are also starting to move into the city. Stores like Kohl’s and Best Buy have continued to open new stores in the city.
2) Arlington, Virginia. Arlington neighbors Washington D.C. and is home to the Pentagon as well as Arlington National Cemetery. The biggest employers in this city include the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the State Department. When there is a lot of government jobs in an area, the national unemployment rate has a much smaller effect on what is going on in the local employment rate.
Arlington also has several large private employers such as US Airways, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Marriott.
3) Columbus, Ohio. Columbus has a strong distribution industry as well as a strong transportation industry and this can likely be attributed to the city’s central location in not only the state, but as well as the country.
Columbus has a diverse economy for such a Mid-America kind of town. It boasts healthcare, manufacturing, technology, as well as hospitality services. The largest employers in the city include the biggest university in the state Ohio State, Nationwide Insurance, Bob Evans, JP Morgan Chase, and OhioHealth.
4) Houston, Texas. This Texas city, like much of the rest of the state, has come out fairly unscathed in this recession. Houston is one of the only cities in the country where people are actually finding work. Houses in Texas are affordable and jobs are plentiful. Thanks to the city’s large stake in the oil industry, this city has continued to fare well.
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Tags: national unemployment rate, recession, booz allen hamilton
JP Morgan Chase says “goodbye” to arbitration clause in card agreements
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Mon, Nov 23 2009 | 0 Comments
JPMorgan Chase has decided to drop a clause from the credit card contracts that it has members sign when they sign up for cards. The clause is the highly disputed mandatory arbitration clause.
So, why exactly are arbitration agreements bad?
Arbitration can (and often does) give the company the ability to really mess you over in any kind of lawsuit. If you have a legal dispute with a company, you can’t take them to court…you take them to arbitration. Also, if you decide to take the company to arbitration, you will be forced to share the costs of the services with the company.
A group of people cannot form a class action lawsuit against a company that has a mandatory arbitration agreement in the contract.
Typically in arbitration, the company will be allowed to pick who the company is who provides the arbitrator.
The entire situation is meant to give consumers the short end of the stick in a lot of cases where large companies are involved.
However, now that Chase Card Services has decided to remove the mandatory clause from the contracts, it will open up the doors to things like class action lawsuits. Because of this, the company will likely be a bit more careful and scrupulous with its business actions.
The reason the banks had arbitration to begin with is because they claimed that it was more fair to the consumers because they were cheaper and took less time. When you look at the negatives that come from arbitration though, you can see that it often does not favor the consumer. In many cases, the odds are definitely against the person who wants to sue the company.
Chase isn’t the first company to take the clause out. Bank of America has done the same thing in the past few months. There are still plenty of businesses and corporations (and, yes, banks) that mandate arbitration. I believe that some banks will always require arbitration for mortgages.
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Tags: arbitration agreement, arbitration agreements, mandate
The Dow Jones Crossed the 10,000 mark today
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Wed, Oct 14 2009 | 0 Comments
For the first time in just over a year, the Dow Jones has traded above 10,000. The last time the Dow traded above 10,000 was October 7, 2008. It hasn’t closed above 10,000 since October 3, 2008. The lowest it has traded at since then was on March 9th when it traded at 6,547.05. The Dow is now up 53% from that point.
The increase came from earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase and Intel, both of which were upbeat. JP Morgan Chase beat expectations by reporting a $3.59 billion profit for it’s most recent quarter. It also reported a record year to date revenue. Intel also beat expectations. It reported a decline in profits, however the decline was much smaller than what was expected from the company. The report raised hopes that the final quarter of the year would be better for the computer market.
Gold also hit another all time high of $1,072 an ounce and oil rose above $75 a barrel. This all comes after the dollar continued its decline and investors put their money into commodities.
Whenever the market increases like this, it can be seen as a very good thing for the economy. However, what if its all going back to normal too quickly? I would like to see everything go back into the black as quickly as possible, but recessions typically last years and have lasting effects for even longer. The huge increase in the stock market just seems too rapid to count on.
People and analysts have been saying that we may have just found ourselves on a false recovery, but if it holds, this is a great thing for our economy and hopefully the job market will begin to pick up as people are getting accustomed to spending money again. It’s easy to see how the economy really works when you have to talk about it every day. It actually needs everyone to pitch in a bit in order to work fluidly.
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Tags: recessions, earnings reports, jpmorgan chase
WaMu sues FDIC for $13 billion
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Sun, Mar 22 2009 | 0 CommentsFollowing what WaMu said is an unreasonably low price of $1.9 billion sale to JP Morgan Chase, the failed savings and loan company is suing the FDIC for over $13 billion.
WaMu filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia accusing the FDIC of making a “cryptic disallowance” as well as agreeing to the low selling price to JPMorgan late last year. At the time of the sale, regulators seized WaMu and the FDIC was appointed as the receiver.
In its complaint, Washington Mutual seeks to recover as much as $6.5 billion of capital contributions it said it made to its banking unit from December 2007 through the seizure.
Washington Mutual also seeks the return of $4 billion of trust preferred securities it said were wrongfully transferred to the banking unit, and said it may be entitled to as much as $3 billion of tax refunds. It also seeks damages of $177.1 million related to unpaid loans made to the banking unit.
The company also made claims on several other matters that together could add to any recovery. Washington Mutual is seeking a jury trial.
The FDIC, really? How about suing JPMorgan too? Wait, if neither of the parties would have gotten involved the whole company would have collapsed. The day after the FDIC was appointed as receiver, the parent holding company of WaMu filed for Chapter 11. WaMu was going to either be sold off or go out of business.
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Tags: wamu, washington mutual, trust preferred securities
