News Links: Credit Card APR Hits Record at 15 Percent as Fed Funds Stays at Zero Percent

We’ve started 2012 on a troubling financial note: credit card interest rates are hovering near record highs.

According to Amazon, the Kindle Fire led the Kindle line to record-breaking sales of 4 million devices over the holiday season. You have to think that at least some of those shoppers opted for the Fire in lieu of an iPad, and one investment bank says that’s exactly what happened. Analyst Tavis McCourt at Morgan Keegan said in a note to investors today that the Amazon Kindle Fire robbed Apple of 1 million to 2 million iPad sales. He had been estimating about 16 million iPads sold in the quarter, but downgraded that to 13 million.

Property prices in Dublin have plunged by 65% in five years. Analysts predict ‘over-correcting market’ will dip again in 2012

the left and right agreed a buffer stock of the unemployed is just what the doctor ordered. It is the medicine for a healthy capitalism. An antidote to full employment. By contrast, we argued it makes more sense to get them working, to pay them for contributing to society, to keep them out of a life of crime and destitution and desperation

The 54-year-old Mr. Thompson, analysts say, has a background mainly in technology rather than digital media or corporate turnarounds. While PayPal is a consumer service, analysts said that was very different from a media company.

A CANADIAN man who realised he had forgotten his passport as he approached the US border found a new way to gain entry – his iPad. Martin Reisch said a slightly annoyed US border officer let him cross into the United States from Quebec after he presented a scanned copy of his passport on his Apple iPad.

"If the government wishes to cut its deficits, other sectors must save less. The questions are ‘which ones’ and ‘how’. What the government has not admitted is that the only actors able to save less now are corporations. The government’s – not surprisingly, unstated – policy is to demolish corporate profits."

Commentary: Interest rates, the election, Europe and other stories to watch

This is a chilling little speech by Jesselyn Radick, a Bush administration whistleblower who was harassed aggressively by the Department of Justice, on how matters have gotten much worse for government whistleblowers under Obama, both in numbers and the ferocity of the retaliation.

Morgen Abend strahlt CNN International um 20.45 Uhr ein Interview von Richard Quest mit Otmar Issing, dem ehemaligen Chefvolkswirt der EZB aus. CNN stellte dem Blick Log Kernaussagen und das Transkript der Sendung vorab zur Verfügung. Hier die Kernaussagen

Overall, only one page in the sponsored post campaign was ever spotted with a "straight" link that passed credit to the Chrome page. It also didn’t seem as if the campaign overall was designed to help Chrome rank for any particular terms. It was doing fine on its own before this happened. But technically, even that single link was enough to make Google guilty of buying paid links, even if it happened because of two different agencies being involved. Minor technical violation or not, I’d say Google applied a solid penalty against itself, one that should last for at least 60 days.