The self-admitted Godfather of Spam has been sentenced to federal prison for his role in an e-mail stock scam.

Alan Ralsky, 64, has been sentenced to 51 months in prison and ordered to forfeit a quarter of a million dollars.

A district judge in the Detroit area also sentenced others who worked with the accused. Ralsky’s son-in-law was one of the others that was convicted of the same crimes.

Ralsky and his son in law Bradley pleaded guilty to a number of charges that included money laundering and several violations pertaining to e-mails.  The men who are from Michigan pleaded guilty to the charges in June.

Ralsky  has a history of spamming that goes back  10 years . Before laws were passed to crack down on spamming he reportedly sent millions of fake e-mails out on a daily basis. Spamming became a large problem during the Bush administration and then President Bush enacted laws that were designed to deal with the problem of large amounts of e-mail sent without return addresses.

The Michigan accused worked with a Canadian counterpart who was also sentenced to 51 months in jail.

Unfortunately, experts are predicting that this year’s retail season will be only slightly better if not worse than the one in 2008.  They also say that consumer spending over the holidays will be marked by a conservative caution that will see things like apparel and books take precedence over more for frivolous items.

The NPD Group is a research firm that has been looking into the trends retailers can expect during this holiday season.  The group finds that up to 30% of Americans say they plan to spend less money this year on holiday gifts than last year, and a spokesman for the group says that the increase in the number of people planning to spend less makes sense considering the rise in unemployment over the last 12 months..

There is also evidence that consumers are working harder to find deals.  The search engine Google reports that searches for printable coupons to save money are up by 30% this year over last, and they  attribute this increase to the  in downswing people’s economic fortunes. The overall trend this year is towards a conservative spending approach for consumers across the board.

Only a week after President Obama has returned from his Asian trip, relationships between the two countries have sank to a new low with a report in a Chinese newspaper that the Americans are accusing that country of cyber spying.

And unnamed Chinese government official has dismissed any reports of the countries spying and said the accusations could very well be an attempt to bolster the president’s sagging approval ratings. The USCC’s website reported on a number of supposed infractions by the Chinese, and this is the place that is the ground zero for the controversy.

The site accuses the Chinese of  increasing their efforts to infiltrate American computer networks using sophisticated methods.   However, many objective observers are the first to point out that this website has taken a harder line on the Chinese administration than the White House and that most of what is printed on their website is often considered biased.

Another point to be kept in mind is that the USCC has no actual authority in matters that would affect the foreign policy of the government toward the Chinese.

Chinese automakers are looking at their options all around the world and buying General Motors once it goes public is one of the things on their list of possibilities.

It’s a crazy idea for those auto industry people who are used to seeing an All American General Motors, but industry analysts are saying that the idea isn’t all that far-fetched.

David Cole is the chairman of the Center for Automotive Research.   He says it it’s quite apparent that the Chinese are shopping heavily in the American automotive sector. There’s no need to worry right away however.  Cole says a Chinese owned GM wouldn’t happen until the auto giant start selling shares to the public and that will not be for another year.

He did say the Chinese own a lot of American money and are looking to invest and he said the Chinese have showed interest in buying some of the brands like Hummer that have been cut loose by the auto giant.Even the companies that don’t seem to be in that much trouble like Ford are looking to sell some aspects of their operations  to the Chinese.

October continued to be a bad month for the economy as orders for big-ticket factory goods fell.  The move sent an alarm bell out with the economists who had not expected such a drastic fall in an economy that was showing improvement otherwise.

This drop marked the first decline since August and was especially concerning considering that September had showed a moderate gain. Experts were able to identify several reasons for the drop and one of those included a fall in the amount of defense department ordering of big ticket items.

Still, overall economists were disappointed by the numbers.  Most of the experts in the field had expected a rise of at least a half a percent for October, but least one of the areas where the numbers fell can be easily explained.  The automotive sector has been struggling even with cash incentives from the government.  Bigger firms like General Motors have been constantly losing money over several months, and with their increased inventories and lack of sales they had their part in these dismal October numbers for durable goods.

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Although there have been gloomy reports about the production and sales figures for some North American automakers recently, there is some better news from places like Kia. The company used an opera singer and a celebrity to launch their new luxury sedan, the Cadenza, and Kia is hoping that this new addition to their lineup will raise their game and get them a bigger market share even though the outlook for the global economy is still mixed.

The company was more well-known for its affordable economy cars before this launch.  However according to industry experts, they’ve taken a page from the Hyundai playbook by launching into the luxury sedan market.

Kia President Lee Hyoung-keun  said in a statement that the new car would increase the fortunes of the company and guaranteed what he hoped would be a much broader consumer appeal for the automaker. The launch of the Cadenza is not the only big news to come from Kia recently.

Last week they opened their first factory in the United States which is located in Georgia.

A government push to protect consumers from the high interest rates that credit card firms are sure to enact over the holiday season has failed. Still, there are tough rules that are set to go into effect early in the new year. These were brought about by the president and prohibits the companies from raising the interest rates on some cards with a fixed rate unless the cardholder is two months behind in their payments.

The date for these new laws to be passed was to be moved ahead but the obstacle came in the Senate. It seems that the Republicans blocked the bill.

“The holiday season is upon us. Hard-pressed Americans want go out and do what what they can to help their families and celebrate, in a very difficult time, some joy … by taking a credit card out and making those purchases,”Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn said from the house floor. “They’re watching … an industry continue to skyrocket these rates and fees on people.”

Dodd is the politician who has been credited with the bill to freeze the rates and according to a spokesperson from his office, he has not given up on the bill.

According to a new study, money isnt the only thing on an investment banker’s mind. If that were the case, there would be  more than a few of these executives that would have left it all behind after making their fortunes.  John Mack is a good example. He left Morgan Stanley almost ten years ago with enough to live on for the rest of his life.  However, the fact remains that he continued on in the business.

The fact is, according to this study, that these men enjoy the competition between rivals and the money is only a part of all that.

The study that was done by Harvard does mention the fact that while some of these companies lose a great amount of money due to the excessive risk taking undergone by their executives, these same leaders don’t lose much of their personal fortunes that were made outside the firm and before any collapse.

Although it’s unclear how much stock these executives are allowed to sell, this factor does influence the decisions about where they decide to work.

Government numbers that were released today show weaker economic growth than had originally been forecast for the third quarter with the GDP coming in at almost a full percentage point lower than the Commerce Department’s first revision that came in a month ago.

The decline was something that was no surprise and at least part of the reason can be attributed to the growing gap between national exports and imports . The goods that are coming in to the United States are holding back the domestic recovery according to the experts.

There was some other bad news as well. The latest reports also painted a gloomy picture for consumer spending and downward expectations in the housing market.

The sales and inventories of autos also suffered. During the height of the recession, the auto makers slashed inventories and having cause to rebuild them would help the economy. Although there are some less than rosy pictures being painted on several fronts, most economists agree that the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression ended at some point during the summer and things are on the mend.