Sunday, October 14, 2012

Monday October 15 Housing and Economic stories



TOP STORIES:

CCSF's $138 mil albatross? - (www.sfgate.com) As the college teeters on the financial brink, it opens a spiffy 14-story campus in Chinatown. Ambitious buildings often debut at the most awkward possible time. The Chinatown/North Beach campus of City College of San Francisco is the latest case in point. The 14-story tower that now anchors Portsmouth Square had its ceremonial opening Friday as the 86,000-student system is threatened with the loss of accreditation because of managerial and financial problems. The first meeting held by trustees in a companion four-story building included a vote to bring in a state trustee to oversee operations. In this context, it is difficult not to view the $138 million campus as an albatross. But from the urban design perspective, or as a manifestation of San Francisco's cultural dynamics, look on it as something else: a smart addition to the landscape no matter what comes next.

Investors fear imminent tail-risk event - (www.ft.com) The world’s biggest investors fear a fresh market crisis will erupt in the next 12 months amid worries that troubles in the eurozone will hit global growth and cause disruption in the financial system similar to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. More than 70 per cent of investors warn that a so-called tail-risk event, an external shock that causes a market sell-off and potentially threatens the financial system, will happen in the next year, says State Street Global Advisors. State Street, the third biggest manager of money in the world, said 71 per cent of investors in a survey of 300 around the world, including the largest pension funds, asset managers and private banks, fear an imminent Lehman-like event.

Greek protest turns violent during general strike - (www.ap.com) Europe's fragile financial calm was shattered Wednesday as investors worried that violent anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain's debt troubles showed that the continent still cannot contain its financial crisis. Police fired tear gas Wednesday at rioters hurling gasoline bombs and chunks of marble during Greece's largest anti-austerity demonstration in six months. The protests were part of a 24-hour general strike, the latest test for Greece's nearly four-month-old coalition government and the new spending cuts it plans to push through. The brief but intense clashes by several hundred rioters among the 60,000 people protesting in Athens came a day after anti-austerity protests rocked the Spanish capital. In Madrid, thousands of angry protesters again swarmed as close as they could get Wednesday night to Parliament, watched by a heavy contingent of riot police. There was no fresh violence, but the demonstrators cut off traffic on one of the city's major thoroughfares at the height of the evening commute.

ECB Bond Buying May Hinder Reforms, Weidmann Tells NZZ - (www.bloomberg.com) The European Central Bank’s bond purchasing program could hinder a recovery in the euro zone if it eases pressure on governments to implement reforms, German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. Weidmann questioned whether bond-purchase programs are the appropriate mechanism for solving structural problems, such as the lack of competitiveness and loss of trust in an individual country’s fiscal policies, according to the interview. Weidmann was the only member of the ECB Governing Council to oppose the so-called Outright Monetary Transactions program.

Exclusive - IMF, EU clash over Greece's bailout prospects  - (www.reuters.com) Greece's international lenders are at loggerheads over how to solve Athens' debt crisis, threatening more trouble for the euro as the IMF demands European governments write off some of the Greek debt they hold. Officials from Greece and the "troika" of European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund have told Reuters that tensions among them have increased of late as the Washington-based Fund has played tough. It has been pushing to restructure debts Athens owes to public-sector foreign creditors. EU leaders prefer to give Greece more time to meet bailout goals. While strains between Greece and its would-be saviours have been evident, as significant are frictions among the lenders.







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