Well, by now the 25 basis point rate cut is old news. It’s interesting to see the mixed reaction to the cut; some say it wasn’t enough and that The Street was expecting 50 points, others say that the Fed should quit trying to save the economy from recession and let the free market play out.

A few highlights:

This Fed continues to display their cluelessness. They will definitely have to cut more times, so just GET IT OVER WITH now. Silly Fed. -Jordan, In The Money

What is the right number for interest rates? 4%? 3%? 2%? No one knows for sure, and that’s the problem. Investors are …

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It seems our good old government is setting a course to bail out those who weren’t responsible enough to take care of their own financial house.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today that the Department is “aggressively pursuing a comprehensive plan” to aid as many homeowners as possible. He went on to offer fresh details about a nearly complete government and private-sector effort to stem a huge number of foreclosures next year.

“We are leading the industry to develop a systemic means of efficiently moving able borrowers into sustainable mortgages,” Mr. Paulson said today in a speech to the Office of Thrift Supervision’s housing forum.

OK, so in not so many …

Verizon Wireless announced yesterday that they will be revising their policy on allowing free-market cell phones to be used on their network. The change will take affect by the mid part of next year.

In effect, it will allow you to buy just about any cell phone, from any vendor, and activate it on the Verizon network.

This is big!

Not just because it gives you more freedom to use whatever cell phone fits your needs, but it also signals that the free market does have an effect, even in the highly competitive wireless industry.

What’s next? Perhaps more flexibility in pricing and plans, and even better, …

Things aren’t looking half bad in the stock market these days. The volume of the NYSE listed shares that rose in price is more than 94% of the total volume on that exchange, which means the chances are good you made some money today.

Those in the “know” call these 9-to-1 up days. Days where there is a drastic imbalance of shares trading up over shares trading down.

Martin Zweig worte in his 1986 book, “Winning on Wall Street” that “Every bull market in history, and many good intermediate advances, have been launched with a buying stampede that included one or more 9-to-1 up days.”

A bull market? Seriously?

Existing-home sales fell …

I’ve always been skeptical of the true value of running a vehicle on ethanol. I feel that the next great propulsive fuel must have a net energy content greater than gasoline. Scientifically, this means that the energy content of a given amount of future fuel must be greater than gasoline. Currently, I believe the prime candidate for this is hydrogen.

But I digress. Back to the ethanol farce.

I came across a Consumer Reports revelation from 2006 presenting the results of their gasoline vs. ethanol tests. They ran a battery of tests on a new (2007) flex-fuel …

A Sunday report from ComScore Inc revealed that retail spending on the Internet during the Thanksgiving weekend is up 29% to $272 million from from the same period last year.

For so-called Black Friday, e-commerce sales amounted to $531 million, a 22% gain from e-commerce spending in 2006. ComScore expects “Cyber Monday,” the first workday after the holiday weekend, to post sales exceeding $700 million.

I’m not sure how an increase in on-line spending will affect our economy, but one thing is for certain: On-line or off-line, it seems higher fuel costs, a staggering housing market, and credit problems  are not curtailing consumer spending just yet.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad came out Sunday at the end of a rare OPEC summit stating that OPEC’s members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a “worthless piece of paper.” (It later became clear that the “members” he is referring to is none other than Iran and Venezuela… go figure.)

He went on to blame President Bush’s policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.

In an effort to tag-team the idea, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez jumped in from the sidelines saying “the empire …

Well it appears that the effects of our credit crunch are starting to show up in non-essential services.

Sprint is losing subscribers. Big time. Sprint lost 337,000 post-paid subscribers, or customers who sign annual contracts and pay monthly bills. Total subscribership fell 60,000 from the second quarter to 54 million. The competition, however is doing better. AT&T and Verizon Wireless added two million and 1.6 million net subscribers, respectively. Furthermore, Sprint expects subscriber losses to continue into the fourth quarter.

It seems that Sprint’s troubles stem from its reliance on customers with poor credit, the cellphone industry’s version of the …

It’s really no surprise that the Fed dropped rates by another quarter point yesterday. In fact, The Street figured it was a 90% sure thing that it would happen.

So now I can expect my Emigrant Direct savings account rate to drop accordingly, just as companies like Proctor and Gamble are issuing statements that they’re worried about consumer spending in the next few months (and when they indicate publicly they’re worried about it, don’t count on financials being all that great next quarter).

With the second rate cut totaling 0.75% in six weeks, it’s clear the Fed is trying …

Yesterday crude oil settled in above $93 per barrel on production problems in Mexico and a weaker dollar.
Pemex, of Mexico, took 600,000 barrels a day off line due to weather. Most of the problem stems from ports being closed, as they are unable to export any more crude and have run out of storage.

The lost production will likely be made up quickly, but it will certainly draw on U.S. inventory levels in the coming weeks, which should further support prices. Crude is up 10% since Wednesday, when the DOE said in its weekly inventory report that stockpiles fell, contrary to analysts’ expectations for a build.

On Wednesday, the Fed may …