Monday, August 20, 2012

Tuesday August 21 Housing and Economic stories



TOP STORIES:

Police Chief’s $204,000 Pension Shows How Cities Crashed - (www.bloomberg.com) Stockton, California, Police Chief Tom Morris was supposed to bring stability to law enforcement when he was appointed to the job four years ago. He lasted eight months and left the now-bankrupt city at age 52 with an annual pension that pays more than $204,000 -- the third of four chiefs who stayed in the position for less than three years and retired with an average of 92 percent of their final salaries. Stockton, which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 28, is among California cities from the Mexican border to the San Francisco Bay confronting rising pension costs as they contend with growing unemployment and declining property- and sales-tax revenue. The pensions are the consequence of decisions made when stock markets were soaring, technology money flooded the state, and retirement funds were running surpluses.

Hospital Chain Investigation Found Dubious Cardiac Work - (www.nytimes.com) In the summer of 2010, a troubling letter reached the chief ethics officer of the hospital giant HCA, written by a former nurse at one of the company’s hospitals in Florida. In a follow-up interview, the nurse said a doctor at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center, in the small coastal city of Fort Pierce, had been performing heart procedures on patients who did not need them, putting their lives at risk. “It bothered me,” the nurse, C. T. Tomlinson, said in a telephone interview. “I’m a registered nurse. I care about my patients.”

Standard Chartered may lose NY license over Iran ties - (www.reuters.com) In a rare move, New York's top bank regulator threatened to strip the state banking license of Standard Chartered Plc, saying it was a "rogue institution" that hid $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, in violation of U.S. law. The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) on Monday said the British bank "schemed" with the Iranian government and hid from law-enforcement officials some 60,000 secret transactions to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in fees over nearly 10 years.

Social Security's Era of 'Free Money' Comes to an End - (www.cnbc.com) People retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It’s a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. Previous generations got a much better bargain, mainly because payroll taxes were very low when Social Security was enacted in the 1930s and remained so for decades.

Knight Blowup Shows How High-Speed Traders Outrace Rules - (www.bloomberg.com)  The U.S. has the most sophisticated financial markets in the world, yet they can unaccountably spin out of control at a moment’s notice. The latest case involves Knight Capital Group Inc. (KCG), a securities-trading company in Jersey CityNew Jersey, that was laid low by one of its inadequately tested computer-trading programs. In less than an hour on Aug. 1, the program entered incorrect bids for about 150 stocks into the interconnected electronic marketplace. Computer programs at other firms sniffed out the errors and traded against Knight. By the end of the day, the company was out $440 million, forcing it to seek outside financing to survive. This debacle highlights a market weakness that regulators have been unable to address because high-frequency trading has raced ahead of the humans who try to contain the mischief it can cause. Industry resistance to improved regulation hasn’t helped. 





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