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One of the more pleasant aspects of shopping online is being able to pay $9.99 for a product that costs $9.99. There’s nothing more annoying that being charged extra fees and ending up paying $10.45 for a product that costs $9.99. (Note: $9.99 is only being used as an example figure). For decades the Internet has been run by it’s own rules mainly because it is a virtual entity that cannot be subjected to the rules and regulations of any single location. However, if some organizations and states get their way many of the freedoms you now enjoy could soon become restricted.

If you live in New York and enjoy tax-free shopping on Amazon.com there’s been a lawsuit filed by Amazon.com against the state of New York that might be of interest to you. It seems the governor of New York is trying to force Amazon and other online companies to start taxing you for all items you purchase online regardless of where the items are being shipped from. Amazon is fighting on your behalf, and on their own behalf of course, but if they lose, you won’t be saving on taxes by doing your shopping on the Internet any longer.

New York is of course not the only state pushing the issue of taxing Internet purchases. Governments don’t want you getting away with being able to save a dime. They want your dime. They want your penny and they’re doing everything they can to make sure they get it. What are you doing to trying to hold on to your last dime?

Buying on Web to avoid sales taxes could end

Bernard Madoff’s disgruntled victims who were hoping his bail would be revoked and he would get thrown in jail where they say he belongs will be disapointed to know that a federal judge in New York has ruled not to revoke Madoff’s bail. Bernard Madoff will remain under house arrest.

Starting January 7th 2009 powerball will become even harder to win with the state of Florida getting in on the action and the odds of winning the jackpot altered from 1 in 146 million to 1 in 195 million thanks to a change in the range of numbers players can select from. Currently players pic 5 numbers from a range of 1 - 55 for the first set of numbers and one number from a range of 1 - 42 for the powerball number. Starting January 7th, the range of numbers will change from 1 - 59 for the main numbers and  1 - 39 for the powerball number.

While these changes are expected to mean bigger, more tempting jackpots, it will also mean you’ll be even less likley to win the jackpot starting January 7th than you were before.

I’ve been watching Sirius stock for a while now. I own a handful of shares; and over the last few months I’ve been waiting for some kind of firm indication of the direction the company is headed. I’ve been watching the value of their stock waiting for the decline to stop. When it fell to 48 cents I bought some shares because I figured the stock couldn’t get much cheaper than that. Advance to now and a share of Sirius XM radio stock is worth $0.12 cents. I’ve been reading headlines that the company will be filing bankruptcy. With stock shares at twelve cents it seems unlikely that the company can be saved. Oddly enough though they continue to launch stuff over there. I definitely don’t get that. They are carrying on as if there’s still a company to run.

So should you buy the stock? Can you even buy it if you were to decide what the heck? You could probably collect enough pennies off the street to buy a few shares; but even so I wouldn’t waste my pennies. There’s nothing to suggest hope of it turning around.

Update: I’ve just read that shareholders have approved a reverse stock split. Guess I neglected to put in my vote. A reverse stock split will lift the stock value (that’s the hope) but it will also reduce the shares I own from 100 to about 1. That means if the share price grows to $5, just to use a random figure, instead of having shares worth roughly $500, I’ll have shares worth $5 or even less if I’m correctly understanding that it might be a 1:50 split. I’ll have a fraction of a share. This warrants an expletive but I’ll just sigh instead and call that another loss.

Thierry de la Villehuchet has committed suicide. He was a hedge fund investor who lost billions of dollars in the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme you’ve been hearing so much about. That Bernard Madoff guy was some kind of amazing to pull off scamming so many billionaires. I mean, Spielberg, Lilliane Bettencourt (she’s like the world’s richest woman (yes, way way richer than Oprah)). Villehuchet probably killed himself because other people trusted him with their money, like Bettencourt. It was through Villehuchet that she got scammed in the Madoff madness.

Villehuchet was from France. He was 65, so at least he lived a long life and it was probably a good life too until these latest developments. Killing yourself seems like taking the easy way out though. So you made a mistake and trusted a snake. It’s all part of the game of investing and the people who trusted you with their money must have known that loss was a possibility. These a big money people. They understand the nature of the game. Of course big losses like that are going to be devastating but come on, Lilliane Bettencourt has 22 billion to her name. Losing 5 billion still leaves her with 17 billion so it’s not like she was wiped out and facing life on the streets of Paris. Villehuchet didn’t need to kill himself over this; but I guess until I’ve lost billion of other people’s money I can’t really know what I would have done if I was in his shoes.

Get more details on CNN

Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company made the mistake of flying out to Washington in a private luxury jet last month to beg for money from the government to help bail out his failing company. He didn’t think any of the taxpayers would notice. He probably didn’t think the taxpayers even realized that any bailout of his company would be coming at their expense. After all the taxpayers are stupid. That’s why Mulally makes nearly thirty million dollars per year while they’re averaging thrity thousand; but Mulally and the other two CEOs from Chrysler and General Motors came very quickly to the realization that taxpayers might be stupid but they at least know that one plus one equals two.

Along with the other two corporate executives, Alan Mulally was villified by the media for having the nerve to fly out to Washington in a luxury jet worth multiple millions to beg the government to take taxpayer dollars and bail out his company. Mulally is heading back to Washington and will not be making the same mistake twice. This time around he’s going to be driving. Here’s hoping he won’t be driving there in a Bugatti Veyron.

The US government has come to the rescue of another major player in the investment and banking sector. Citigroup Inc. has been granted a rescue package that is intended to protect the company from incurring further losses on the value of its stock. On Friday Citigroup Inc saw the value of its stock close at $3.77.

Following the Treasury, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp’s announcement earlier today that they would provide capital in the amount of $20 billion to bolster the banks stock after last week’s 60% drop in value, the bank’s assets soared as high as 72%.

In return for bailing out Citigroup Inc, the government will receive $27 billion of preferred shares paying an 8 percent dividend.

Where to begin? Well let’s start by correcting previous headlines about the automakers getting their loan. They haven’t quite gotten the loan yet. In the words of Nancy Pelosi, “Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money.” The “plan” is information congress has requested from the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, detailing how they intend to use the money they are asking for to turn their companies around.

This situation is largely responsible for the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at 7,552.29 points today, and for the S & P Index reaching an 11½ year low.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has called the crisis a “once or twice” in a 100 years event. He is quoted as blaming the situation on:

“government inaction and mistaken actions, outdated U.S. and global financial regulatory systems, and by the excessive risk-taking of financial institutions.”

Jobs are being cut all over the place. Rolls Royce is cutting jobs, Boeing is cutting jobs; first-time unemployment benefit filings have reportedly “shot up to their highest level since July 1992″. Things are starting to look quite desperate for the US and world economies.

Things continue to look bleak for Yahoo. When news first came out that present chief executive officer, Jerry Yang, would be stepping down from his position there was some speculating about the the possibility of renewed talks of a merger with Microsoft. The speculation resulted in an increase in buying activity that boosted the share price of Yahoo stock for a brief period.

However, the speculations about the immediate future of Yahoo have now ended with a statement from Microsoft’s Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer.

Steve Ballmer has reportedly told investors that he is no longer interested in an outright acquisition of yahoo. The expressed lack of interest in buying out Yahoo has resulted in shares of Yahoo stock dropping to what is being reported as “their lowest level in more than five years”.

Image: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo bid by Edgeworks Limited

For the first time since March 2003 the Dow Jones industrial average fell below the 8,000 mark, closing at 7997 points in no small part due to uncertainty over the fates of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

On the heels of comments from the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, and treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, investors pulled money out of the market in the final minutes of the day’s session. The wave of selling is being attributed to the situation with the auto companies as well as the ongoing housing crisis and a reportedly bigger drop than ever in consumer prices.

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Image: The Dow says… POO by stepleton