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Spanish bailout 'impossible' for Eurozone - (www.telegraph.co.uk) The eurozone is not equipped to bail out Spain, the country's prime minister Mariano Rajoy has admitted, as global traders continued to punish the nation's stocks and bonds. Mr Rajoy said it was "not possible to rescue Spain" but insisted his country did not need a Greek-style international bail-out anyway. "To talk about a bail-out for Spain at the moment makes no sense," he told reporters. "Spain is not going to be rescued; it's not possible to rescue Spain, there's no intention to, it's not necessary and therefore it's not going to be rescued." Despite his comments, the Madrid bourse fell and the yields on the country's benchmark bonds remained stubbornly high. While other European markets soared on Thursday following strong gains in America, Spain's Ibex index lost 0.5pc. Politicians in Rome tried to counter the markets' view that Italy was in the same predicament as Spain.
"Historic districts" are just a way to prop up prices for the wealthy - (www.salon.com) New historic districts seem less interested in saving a neighborhood's character than driving up property values. If Amy Poehler’s peppy, can-do bureaucrat is the soul of “Parks and Recreation,” it’s easy to picture the star of a show about a historic preservation commission: a feisty, aging bohemian who long ago traded in her sitar for a shawl, defending her city’s charm from greedy developers who hate history as much as they love towers of glass. It’s the sort of character you might expect a Jane Jacobs devotee to follow in lockstep. But the people transforming today’s cities don’t forge their allegiances so predictably. Now, the developer who wants to demolish a row of historic houses to build a 50-story high-rise might be seen as the true urban savior — not the preservationist who wants to prevent him from doing so.
Turmoil in global markets as Spanish bank borrowing from ECB doubles - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Spanish bank borrowing from the European Central Bank doubled last month, revealing a dangerous dependence on emergency funding that on Friday triggered renewed turmoil in financial markets. The Bank of Spain disclosed the country's biggest institutions borrowed €316.3bn (£260.9bn) from the ECB in March, almost twice the €169.8bn in February. Traders dumped Spanish stocks and bought insurance against Madrid defaulting, convinced the data showed that the banks are now almost shut out of international credit markets. Spain's Ibex stock market plunged 3.6pc, with bank stocks leading the fall. The nation's benchmark 10-year bond yields soared past 6pc, heading deep into the danger zone that experts say is not sustainable without external support. Meanwhile, the cost of credit default swaps hit a record high of 500 basis points, meaning it costs £500,000 a year to insure £10m of Spanish debt over five years. This compares with around £70,000 for German debt.
President Obama's tax rate was 20.5%, lower than his secretary's - (www.latimes.com) As President Obama mounts an aggressive campaign on what he calls tax fairness, his own tax burden has fallen to the lowest of his time in the White House, lower than many who make far less — including his secretary. The president and first lady reported a joint adjusted gross income of $789,674 last year and paid $162,074 in federal taxes, or about 20.5%, according to the tax return released Friday by the White House. That income keeps the Obamas in the top 1% of taxpayers. The Obamas' overall tax rate is slightly lower than the average for people in the top tier — largely because he made significant donations to charity. Data compiled by the Tax Policy Center show the average income tax rate for those making more than $532,000 is 24%. Obama's rate was closer to the average for household earning more than $210,000 — 19.2%
Strip-Search Case Reflects Death of American Privacy - (www.bloomberg.com) To be the swing voter, you have to be willing to swing. In the last three weeks, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has shown how it’s done. First he wrote the majority opinion in a landmark 5-4 case establishing a constitutional right to an adequate lawyer in plea-bargaining negotiations. Liberals were enthused. Yet in his tough questioning during the Obamacare arguments, he shook up the conventional wisdom that mandatory coverage would be upheld comfortably. Liberals were not enthused. Then, as a coda, he wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 case allowing jails to strip-search anyone being put into the general prison population -- even without suspicion, and even after the most trivial misdemeanor arrest. The same liberals who loved him in March are prepared to loathe him in April. Noah Feldman is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard and the author of five books, most recently "Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDRs Great Supreme Court Justices." What principle, if any, explains Kennedy’s vote in the strip-search case? Kennedy-watchers know that he is deeply sympathetic to arguments based on human dignity. His perception of dignity led him to vote to preserve the core of Roe v. Wade in 1992, and to write the two opinions that more or less created constitutional rights for gay people.
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