links for 2011-09-15

"Why didn’t the patient buy insurance? Because the price was too high. Why is it so high? Talk about the specific ways in which corporatist policies drive up medical costs (and disempower the poor in other ways too)."

"We regret to inform you that yesterday we uncovered a case of unauthorized trading by a trader in the Investment Bank. We have reported it to the markets in line with regulatory disclosure obligations. The matter is still being investigated, but we currently estimate the loss on the trades to be around 2 billion US dollars. It is possible that this could lead UBS to report a loss for the third quarter of 2011. No client positions were affected."

"This week, we heard from several annoyed Wells Fargo customers who are annoyed that they'll have to pay $15 per month to keep their current account type if they don't have an average of $7,500 in the bank, across all of their accounts."

"By 45% to 32%, more Americans want their member of Congress to vote for rather than against a jobs bill similar to the one President Obama proposed last week, with the rest having no opinion."

"President Barack Obama's disapproval rating has reached a new high of 55% while the number of Americans who think he is a strong leader has dropped to a new low, 48%, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday"

"„Der Spiegel“ is the biggest German weekly magazine with a very popular online news website called „Spiegel Online“. However, it often borders on alarmist and in my view is closer to a tabloid than a serious source of information and analysis."