Tue, Sep 23 2008
THE BAGHOLDERS, IN THOUSANDS
The figures in this chart are in thousands. You are not seeing things - JPMorgan Chase is holding over $90 TRILLION of toxic crap. And that's why the Feds gave them $29 billion of YOUR tax dollars to buy Bear Sterns.
Now you know why the Fed bailout is stratospheric, why the dollar is tanking, and why food and gas prices are going through the roof. This will continue until the dollar falls so low and inflation soars so high that the dollar has to be trashed and the Amero propped up in its place.
Christ on a blue-green raft.Tue, Sep 23 2008
HECKUVA JOB, GEORGIE
Tue, Sep 23 2008
WE'RE FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND WE'RE HERE TO HELP
"This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."
Trillions for fat greedy bankers. Nothing for cleaning up killer chemicals dumped in your drinking water by the government.
We're on our own, kids...
EPA won't limit rocket fuel in drinking water
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.
EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by The Associated Press.
The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.
The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."
The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.
"This is a widespread contamination problem, and to see the Bush EPA just walk away is shocking," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate's environment committee.
Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: "This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."
The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.
The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA's conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.
The Pentagon objected strongly Monday to the suggestion that it sought to influence EPA's decision.
"We have not intervened in any way in EPA's determination not to regulate perchlorate. If you read their determination, that's based on criteria in the Safe Drinking Water Act," Paul Yaroschak, Pentagon deputy director for emerging contaminants, said in an interview.
Yaroschak said the Pentagon has been working for years to clean up perchlorate at its facilities. He also contended that the Pentagon wasn't the source of as much perchlorate contamination as once believed, noting that it also comes from fireworks, road flares and fertilizer.
Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said in a statement that "science, not the politics of fear in an election year, will drive our final decision."
"We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk, and we're committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is protected and meaningful opportunities for reducing risk are fully considered," Grumbles said.
Grumbles said the EPA expected to seek comment and take final action before the end of the year. The draft document was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.
Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it's been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking-water source for 20 million people. It's also been found in lettuce and other foods.
In absence of federal action, states have acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.Tue, Sep 23 2008
U.S. TAXPAYERS TO BAIL OUT EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
Fed plows $30 billion in money markets overseas
WASHINGTON, Associated Press – The Federal Reserve, in coordinated action with foreign central banks, plowed $30 billion into money markets overseas Wednesday, part of an ongoing effort to fight a global credit crisis.
The Fed's action — taken at 1 a.m. EDT — sets up temporary "swap" arrangements to supply dollars to the central banks of Australia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden in exchange for their currencies.
"These facilities, like those already in place with other central banks, are designed to improve liquidity conditions in global financial markets," the Fed said in a brief statement.
"Central banks continue to work together during this period of market stress and are prepared to take further steps as the need arises," the Fed added.
The new swap arrangements will provide up to $10 billion each to the central banks of Australia and Sweden and $5 billion apiece to the central banks of Denmark and Norway.
Last week, the Fed and other foreign central banks pumped as much as $180 billion into money markets overseas. The European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Canada participated in that maneuver.
The global credit crisis poses a danger not only to the U.S. economy but also the world economy.
Finance officials from the world's major economic powers pledged this week to do all they can to provide relief.
The Group of Seven countries said they welcomed the extraordinary steps by the United States to stem the crisis, including a plan for the Treasury Department to buy $700 billion in bad mortgages and other toxic assets held by banks and other financial institutions. Those dodgy debts are at the heart of the crisis. Besides the United States, the Group of Seven is made up of Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.Tue, Sep 23 2008
WIZARDS OF WALL STREET
Tue, Sep 23 2008
THIS IS WHY THE BAILOUT WON'T WORK
The gigantic taxpayer dollar giveaway is a gimme to greedy rich fatcat bankers. It will help prop up a corrupt greedy system that has pumped housing prices through the stratosphere and nothing else.
And because it does absolutely nothing to make housing affordable again or create real jobs or lower prices for essentials, here is exactly why the bailout will never work:
Millions spend half of income on housing
MIAMI, Associated Press - Al Ray is so strapped for cash, the only time he eats out is on Wednesday or Sunday, when the local McDonald's sells hamburgers for 49 cents.
Ray lost his engineering job last November, and has been working as high school tutor, scratching out about $1,000 a month — if he's lucky. He struggled to make his $1,400 monthly mortgage payment and $330 monthly homeowners' association fee until May, when he stopped paying.
Ray, 44, is looking for work and renting out a room in his two-bedroom condo in Davie, Fla., for $500, but his monthly income doesn't match his expenses and he's facing foreclosure.
"I barely have money to survive," he said.
Ray is one of more than 7.5 million people — almost 15 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — who are spending half of their income or more on housing costs, according to 2007 data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from nearly 7.1 million the year before.
Traditionally, the government and most lenders consider a homeowner spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs to be financially burdened. But that definition now covers almost 38 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — 19 million of them.
Though home prices have fallen this year, in the most expensive markets where home prices tripled during the boom, many working families still cannot afford to buy a home.
"We had a bubble," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "This is a case where we absolutely want the market to adjust."
The data underscore the serious affordability problems in this country and highlight how the slightest financial problem — from a lost job to higher gas prices or insurance premiums — can put a family behind on their mortgages and into the realm of foreclosure.
When home prices fell in the early 1990s, borrowers had more equity in their homes, and were able to escape foreclosure. But now, an estimated 10 million homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to Moody's economy.com.
More than 4 million homeowners were at least one month behind on their loans at the end of June, and almost 500,000 had started the foreclosure process, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Cascading foreclosures over the past two years created a domino effect in the lending industry, undermining investor confidence and forcing the Bush administration last weekend to announce the greatest rescue package and market intervention since the Great Depression.
And yet, the deal will not help Dolly Hanna, 51, and her husband, who bought five homes in the San Francisco area over the past 20 years, and were enjoying life during the housing boom by renting them out.
But her husband's overtime at his mechanic's job was cut, and the Hannas now find themselves overextended at a loss of $15,000 per month and trying two sell two of the homes.
With four children, Hanna had been a stay-at-home mom, but Monday she started a job in real estate. They are seeking a renter for two upstairs bedrooms in their primary residence for $1,200.
Getting a loan during the boom was easy, Hanna knows. Too easy.
"All you had to was massage the information enough to fit it into their round hole, and they gave us a mortgage," Hanna said.
In San Francisco, more than one out of five homeowners with a mortgage spends half or more of their income on housing.
That's also true in 13 more of the largest 100 metro areas analyzed by the Associated Press. Other places include California metro areas of Stockton, Los Angeles, Riverside, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, San Francisco, and San Diego. Also in the top 10 are the Fort Myers, Sarasota and Orlando metro areas in Florida, and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island.
But the most cost-burdened homeowners in the country live the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach metro area: 58 percent of homeowners spending 30 percent of their income on housing costs, and 29 percent spending half of their income or more on housing.
Though prices here are dropping, the high cost of land, construction, insurance and property taxes makes living in South Florida too expensive for some.
"Certainly, we hear about people leaving South Florida and going into Atlanta where they can get into a house for less money," Suzanne Weiss, associate director for real estate with Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida.
To help with the affordable housing stock, Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida joined forces with a construction company to build homes for low- to moderate-income residents that include energy-efficient appliances and hurricane-resistant windows.
Other cities and states are also taking action.
In Illinois, a network of 15 nonprofit housing groups gives free advice to struggling homeowners seeking to avoid foreclosure amid rising mortgage payments.
In New England, an affordable housing program funded by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston awards grants and low-interest loans to communities to encourage affordable-housing initiatives for very low- to moderate-income households.
And in Las Vegas, the Nevada Fair Housing Center is helping Rita Harvey renegotiate her mortgage from $2,700 to around $1,800 per month.
Harvey, 64, lives on about $3,300 a month in social security and disability payments for herself and her four disabled grandchildren. She nearly lost her home this summer after her adjustable rate mortgage payment jumped.
"I did not understand that in two years, this would adjust out of control," she said. "Nobody deserves what I've had to go through."All news articles and images provided under the Fair Use Notice.