I caught the end of the Larry King Show when Robin Givens was on there speaking on the Chris Brown/Rihanna incident. Granted this was at like four in morning & I was just getting home from work and the gym. So i kept it on & powered up my laptop. Not to belittle the situation, but I’m somewhat surprised on how much coverage this is getting given the grave condition of our economy, as well as whatever we have our hands tied to overseas. I understand the celebrity factor & ever-changing storyline heighten the interest level, but I still walk around in amazement due to the scope of people I see talking about it.

I began to wonder what else was going on in the news, because I always feel like something is being kept under wraps or swept under the rug when a story like this gets so much of everyone’s attention.

So I wasn’t too surprised the next morning when the top headline in the newspaper said: Citigroup spark ignites rally that flames a modest hope. Reading through the article, it talked about how good news had caused the market to rise, along with stock prices, although it didn’t say specifically what the good news was. My guess is they somehow managed to turn a profit. I’m far from being a genius, but it seemed strange for them to have turned a profit with the housing market still soft & people scrambling to stay in homes. Loans are pretty hard to come by as well, unless your already rich. On top of the fact, that they’ve received somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 billion in bailout money from the government.

The next day on the front page it explained that Citigroup indeed turned a profit in January & February, along with JPMorgan Chase. As always, the devil is truly in the details. The article went onto explain that these institutions have been hiking the interest rates on credit cards to make up for the housing turmoil. Even for those who have good credit & are in good standing with their accounts.

I’ve actually noticed this over the past month or so, as I’ve been paying extra attention to my statements, since I’ve set the goal to pay off my credit cards (or at least 85%) this year. Most of us are grown around here to the point where I’m not gonna lecture anyone about using credit wisely, but I would suggest checking your statements to see if this has affected you. Because this is only the beginning, as my girlfriend (who works for a credit card) said some major changes are coming through the pipeline in respects to how interest is charged.

Seeing how we try to keep things centered around music around here, I’ll leave you with this song that played in my head while reading the all this in the paper the past few days.

Talib Kweli (feat. Res) – “Where Do We Go” (Dedicated To Weldon Irvine)

With that being said, I will still be adding to my shoe collection selection this year. I just gotta bite the bullet & pay for the sins of my (not so) distant youth.

Bank-Stock Rally Spurs Cautious Optimism [The Columbus Dispatch]

Stray Shots

Kanye West – Love Lockdown (Promo CDM)

Z-Ro-Greatest_Hits-2009

Lone_Catalysts-The_Lone_Catalysts_Files

DJ_Revolution-The_Abcs_of_High_Fidelity

Pete_Rock_and_CL_Smooth-Rare_Tracks-1998

Boogie_Down_Productions-Criminal_Minded

K’naan-ABC’S (Promo CDS)

Stray Shots