Financial News Friday – August 9, 2013

Japan’s debt just hit one quadrillion yen. That’s a thousand trillion yen, about $10.5 trillion in US Dollars. That comes out to 245% of their GDP. (Businessweek)

A bill to end the mandatory arbitration clauses that big brokerage houses use to prevent class action lawsuits has been introduced in the House.(Investment News)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has committed to buying the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million. (Reuters)

A man in Russia, Dmitry Agarkov rewrote the fine print on a credit card contract that was sent to him. His new terms: zero interest, zero fees, and unlimited credit. The credit card company, Tinkoff Credit Systems, never read the terms and signed the contract. (MSN Money)

The Postal Service is still unprofitable, posting a $740 million loss this past quarter.  I suppose that’s better than the $5.2 billion loss for that quarter in 2012.(MSN Money)

Cable companies may begin tiered pricing to combat the rise of online video streaming services, which cut into their cable subscribers. While the companies have used the increased costs argument for heavy users in the past, they don’t seem to be using any excuse now. That’s likely due to the fact that the argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. One analyst, Craig Moffet, said that cable ISP services are “almost comically profitable” with profit margins around 97%. (CNN Money)

How one couple is preparing for retirement. They have $500,000 saved and another $400,000 in illiquid assets (their advertising business and a vacation home), but they also have a large amount of debt in the form of their children’s student loans, a mortgage, and credit card debt. (CNN Money)