[bsrsharma]

American Express Has $275 Million Charge for Quarter

American Express Co., the third- largest U.S. credit-card network, will take a fourth-quarter charge of $275 million to cover rising customer defaults and forecast earnings this quarter below analysts’ estimates.

The stock fell 7 percent in extended trading. American Express, based in New York, said today that first-quarter earnings from continuing operations will be less than 90 cents a share, missing the 93-cent average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

American Express adopted a “cautious view” for 2008 after cardholder spending slowed and delinquencies rose in December amid a slowing U.S. economy, the company said in a statement. Capital One Financial Corp., the largest independent U.S. credit-card issuer, said today it may have $5.9 billion in unpaid loans next year, compared with an earlier forecast of $4.9 billion to the “mid-$5 billions.”

“We did see some negative credit trends among U.S. consumers during December, particularly in California, Florida and other parts of the country most affected by the housing downturn,” Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault said in the statement.

Write-offs, or loans the company deemed uncollectible, rose to 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter from 3.7 percent in the third, the company said. It expects they will rise to 5.1 percent to 5.3 percent this year.

Sudden Worsening

Chief Financial Officer Daniel Henry said on a conference call today the rate that customers repaid loans worsened “quite suddenly” in December, leading to the change in 2008 estimates. The weakness was isolated to U.S. consumers, not overseas or business spenders, he said.

Henry told analysts in October the company’s “affluent and high-spending” cardholders shelter the company from the problems of borrowers with the riskiest credit histories.

“Credit-card performance will noticeably deteriorate during the year, given spillover from residential mortgages, weaker economic trends, and higher levels of unemployment,” Fitch Ratings said today in a report on the U.S. industry…..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atutQQocOMnA&refer=worldwide

[bsrsharma]

Based on:

 Quarter Change Real GDP

 Q4 2007 1.5%

 Q1 2008 0.0%

 Q2 2008 -1.0%

 Q3 2008 -1.0%

 Q4 2008 0.5%

 (From http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-goldman-recession-call.html )

 Q4 2008 should be a good time to buy, if you are paying much of the price without a mortgage.

[bsrsharma]

Based on:

 Quarter Change Real GDP

 Q4 2007 1.5%

 Q1 2008 0.0%

 Q2 2008 -1.0%

 Q3 2008 -1.0%

 Q4 2008 0.5%

 (From http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-goldman-recession-call.html )

 Q4 2008 should be a good time to buy, if you are paying much of the price without a mortgage.

[bsrsharma]

Based on:

 Quarter Change Real GDP

 Q4 2007 1.5%

 Q1 2008 0.0%

 Q2 2008 -1.0%

 Q3 2008 -1.0%

 Q4 2008 0.5%

 (From http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-goldman-recession-call.html )

 Q4 2008 should be a good time to buy, if you are paying much of the price without a mortgage.

[bsrsharma]

Based on:

 Quarter Change Real GDP

 Q4 2007 1.5%

 Q1 2008 0.0%

 Q2 2008 -1.0%

 Q3 2008 -1.0%

 Q4 2008 0.5%

 (From http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-goldman-recession-call.html )

 Q4 2008 should be a good time to buy, if you are paying much of the price without a mortgage.

[bsrsharma]

Based on:

 Quarter Change Real GDP

 Q4 2007 1.5%

 Q1 2008 0.0%

 Q2 2008 -1.0%

 Q3 2008 -1.0%

 Q4 2008 0.5%

 (From http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-goldman-recession-call.html )

 Q4 2008 should be a good time to buy, if you are paying much of the price without a mortgage.

[bsrsharma]

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic…

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDEwMTRjZTgzOGZmNWE3ZjY3Y2FmN2UxZDUwY2EyYmY=

[bsrsharma]

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic…

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDEwMTRjZTgzOGZmNWE3ZjY3Y2FmN2UxZDUwY2EyYmY=

[bsrsharma]

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic…

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDEwMTRjZTgzOGZmNWE3ZjY3Y2FmN2UxZDUwY2EyYmY=

[bsrsharma]

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic…

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDEwMTRjZTgzOGZmNWE3ZjY3Y2FmN2UxZDUwY2EyYmY=

[bsrsharma]

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic…

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDEwMTRjZTgzOGZmNWE3ZjY3Y2FmN2UxZDUwY2EyYmY=

[bsrsharma]

why do you find the Mormons any wackier than the Hindus or the Muslims?

What Is It About Mormonism?

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Bathed in the Jordan Or in this case, the glow from the Jordan River Temple, seen from a house in Salt Lake City.

• By NOAH FELDMAN

Published: January 6, 2008

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. Mormons also embody, in their efficient organizational style, the managerial competence that the party’s pro-business wing considers attractive. For the last half-century, Mormons have been so committed to the Republican Party that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once felt the need to clarify that Republican affiliation is not an actual condition of church membership.

Enlarge This Image

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Headquarters Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, which is still mostly shrouded in secrecy.

Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe.

Mormonism’s political problem arises, in large part, from the disconcerting split between its public and private faces. The church’s most inviting public symbols — pairs of clean-cut missionaries in well-pressed white shirts — evoke the wholesome success of an all-American denomination with an idealistic commitment to clean living. Yet at the same time, secret, sacred temple rites and garments call to mind the church’s murky past, including its embrace of polygamy, which has not been the doctrine or practice of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, for a century. Mormonism, it seems, is extreme in both respects: in its exaggerated normalcy and its exaggerated oddity. The marriage of these opposites leaves outsiders uncomfortable, wondering what Mormonism really is……………

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=5c33c44c22e18395&ei=5087

 

[bsrsharma]

why do you find the Mormons any wackier than the Hindus or the Muslims?

What Is It About Mormonism?

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Bathed in the Jordan Or in this case, the glow from the Jordan River Temple, seen from a house in Salt Lake City.

• By NOAH FELDMAN

Published: January 6, 2008

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. Mormons also embody, in their efficient organizational style, the managerial competence that the party’s pro-business wing considers attractive. For the last half-century, Mormons have been so committed to the Republican Party that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once felt the need to clarify that Republican affiliation is not an actual condition of church membership.

Enlarge This Image

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Headquarters Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, which is still mostly shrouded in secrecy.

Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe.

Mormonism’s political problem arises, in large part, from the disconcerting split between its public and private faces. The church’s most inviting public symbols — pairs of clean-cut missionaries in well-pressed white shirts — evoke the wholesome success of an all-American denomination with an idealistic commitment to clean living. Yet at the same time, secret, sacred temple rites and garments call to mind the church’s murky past, including its embrace of polygamy, which has not been the doctrine or practice of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, for a century. Mormonism, it seems, is extreme in both respects: in its exaggerated normalcy and its exaggerated oddity. The marriage of these opposites leaves outsiders uncomfortable, wondering what Mormonism really is……………

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=5c33c44c22e18395&ei=5087

 

[bsrsharma]

why do you find the Mormons any wackier than the Hindus or the Muslims?

What Is It About Mormonism?

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Bathed in the Jordan Or in this case, the glow from the Jordan River Temple, seen from a house in Salt Lake City.

• By NOAH FELDMAN

Published: January 6, 2008

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. Mormons also embody, in their efficient organizational style, the managerial competence that the party’s pro-business wing considers attractive. For the last half-century, Mormons have been so committed to the Republican Party that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once felt the need to clarify that Republican affiliation is not an actual condition of church membership.

Enlarge This Image

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Headquarters Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, which is still mostly shrouded in secrecy.

Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe.

Mormonism’s political problem arises, in large part, from the disconcerting split between its public and private faces. The church’s most inviting public symbols — pairs of clean-cut missionaries in well-pressed white shirts — evoke the wholesome success of an all-American denomination with an idealistic commitment to clean living. Yet at the same time, secret, sacred temple rites and garments call to mind the church’s murky past, including its embrace of polygamy, which has not been the doctrine or practice of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, for a century. Mormonism, it seems, is extreme in both respects: in its exaggerated normalcy and its exaggerated oddity. The marriage of these opposites leaves outsiders uncomfortable, wondering what Mormonism really is……………

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=5c33c44c22e18395&ei=5087

 

[bsrsharma]

why do you find the Mormons any wackier than the Hindus or the Muslims?

What Is It About Mormonism?

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Bathed in the Jordan Or in this case, the glow from the Jordan River Temple, seen from a house in Salt Lake City.

• By NOAH FELDMAN

Published: January 6, 2008

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. Mormons also embody, in their efficient organizational style, the managerial competence that the party’s pro-business wing considers attractive. For the last half-century, Mormons have been so committed to the Republican Party that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once felt the need to clarify that Republican affiliation is not an actual condition of church membership.

Enlarge This Image

Ambroise Tezenas for The New York Times

Headquarters Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, which is still mostly shrouded in secrecy.

Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe.

Mormonism’s political problem arises, in large part, from the disconcerting split between its public and private faces. The church’s most inviting public symbols — pairs of clean-cut missionaries in well-pressed white shirts — evoke the wholesome success of an all-American denomination with an idealistic commitment to clean living. Yet at the same time, secret, sacred temple rites and garments call to mind the church’s murky past, including its embrace of polygamy, which has not been the doctrine or practice of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, for a century. Mormonism, it seems, is extreme in both respects: in its exaggerated normalcy and its exaggerated oddity. The marriage of these opposites leaves outsiders uncomfortable, wondering what Mormonism really is……………

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=5c33c44c22e18395&ei=5087

 

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