TOP
STORIES:
Bank
Contractors Break Into Occupied Homes, Terrify Residents, Lawsuits Say -
(www.huffingtonpost.com) It usually happens when
homeowners are at work or out of town. In Clawson, Mich., Nancy Cox returned
home to find her possessions in the front yard, smashed with a sledgehammer,
and a chalk drawing of a clown face on her garage with the tagline,
"another job well done." For Kenneth and Margaret Karpa in
Pittsburgh, china and photos of their daughter were damaged. Missing belongings
included a coin collection and the family cat. In Kansas City, Allen Danforth
discovered his elderly parents' furnishings -- tables, chairs, family heirlooms
-- gone. These homeowners allege in separate lawsuits that a contractor hired
by a major bank to preserve abandoned properties against damage, mistakenly
entered their homes while they were still occupied. In most cases, it appears
that the contractor, known as a property inspector or property preserver, broke
in after ignoring obvious signs of occupation: lights turned on, grass mowed
and homes fully furnished.
Indebted Valencia asks Spain government for help - (www.reuters.com) Spain's heavily indebted
eastern region of Valencia said on Friday it would apply to Madrid for
financial help, spooking markets and complicating central government efforts to
stave off a full-blown bailout. Separately, the government cut its economic
growth forecasts for 2012 and 2013, indicating they now expected the country to
stay mired in recession well into next year. It will use the revised forecasts
as a base to draw up the 2013 budget, for which the ceiling has been set at 127
billion euros compared to 119 billion euros in 2012.
Rajoy Sets Course Against Spanish Protests As Investors Flee
- (www.bloomberg.com) Prime Minister Mariano
Rajoy will begin mapping out Spain’s
economic path through the next 18 months today in the face of mounting pressure
from protesters and investors, who pushed bond yields above 7 percent. Rajoy
will approve spending limits for 2013, the first stage of the budgeting
process, and forecast the impact of austerity on the economy at a Cabinet
meeting at 10 a.m. in Madrid. European finance ministers will also sign off on
a 100 billion-euro ($123 billion) rescue package for Spain’s banks. Tens of
thousands of protested across the country late yesterday against a 65
billion-euro austerity package that failed to stem a surge in the government’s
borrowing costs. Investors are shunning assets in indebted euro nations while accepting
negative yields on debt fromGermany, Finland and
the Netherlands on concerns the currency union is creaking.
IMF loses all faith in the euro project - (www.telegraph.co.uk) The euro area crisis has reached a new and
critical stage. Despite major policy actions, financial markets in parts of the
region remain under acute stress, raising questions about the viability of the
monetary union itself." The adverse links between sovereigns, banks, and
the real economy are stronger than ever. Financial markets are increasingly
fragmenting along national borders. It said the eurozone is unworkable in its
current form, a half-baked currency union that spreads contagion like wildfire
without the backup machinery to contain the damage: The euro area is in an
uncomfortable and unsustainable halfway point. While it is sufficiently
integrated to allow escalating problems in one country to spill over to others,
it lacks the economic flexibility or policy tools to deal with these spillovers.
Two Years After Dodd-Frank, Why Isn’t Anything Fixed? - (finance.yahoo.com) The lesson of all of this goes directly against
two decades of the mantra of "self-correcting" markets. Financial
institutions cannot be relied upon to do the right thing, when doing the wrong
thing will line their pockets. Regulators, not banks, need to set the rules and
they must be clear, straightforward, and readily enforceable. Yet, still, we
see regulators who are too timid to take on major financial interests. Instead
of just saying "no" they try to placate industry lobbyists by creating
this clarification or that exception, resulting in indecipherable rules that
are hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of pages long. The horrendously
complex rules serve as competitive barriers for smaller institutions which
cannot afford the high priced legal help required to decipher them. They also
make it difficult for outsiders -- media, academics, and reform advocates -- to
conduct meaningful analysis of the rules. And the irony is that once the rules
have ballooned into Rube Goldberg monstrosities, the lobbyists who sought all
the clarifications and exceptions ridicule the regulators for being heavy
handed bureaucrats who are drowning the industry in red tape.
No comments:
Post a Comment