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STORIES:
Snipers,
Commandos to Welcome Merkel in Greece - (www.cnbc.com)
Debt-swamped Greece braced
for two days of strikes, protests and potential violence as German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, long demonized for her tough-talking, austerity-minded approach
to Europe’s deepening woes, prepared to visit the epicenter of the crisis,
three years since it began here. To fend off potential
attacks, at least 7,000 plainclothes police and hundreds more undercover agents
have been mobilized from across the country to lock down the capital and erect
steel fences around parliament. Snipers were already visibly stationed on the
roof tops of government buildings in Athens; Commando Seals and Frogmen were
also ordered on standby as helicopters began patrolling the Athenian skyline
from Monday.
RECORD
GAS PRICES - (money.cnn.com) Gas prices across California
have soared to record highs, shooting up 50 cents a gallon in just the last
week. But even as prices are expected to rise slightly higher in California
before falling, the West Coat price spike is not likely to spread to other parts
of the country, experts say. The average price of a gallon of regular gas in
California hit $4.67 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. It stood at $4.17 on
Oct. 1 but has risen every day since then. The worst was a 17-cent spike on
Friday, followed the next day by a 13-cent increase. On Sunday, California
environmental regulators, acting on a request from Gov. Jerry Brown, agreed to
allow refineries to start making a cheaper, winter blend of gasoline as soon as
possible -- a move that could solve shortages of the more expensive summer
blend that sparked the price spike.
Greek Prime Minister warns 'the cash box is empty after
November' - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Steffan Siebert, a spokesman
for the German government, said: “The message that Germany can take to Greece
... is that we want to help Greece stabilise itself within the eurozone. We are
doing that by massively contributing to the two aid packages that are supposed
to help Greece come out of the crisis. The Greek government reacted
immediately, hailing the visit as "very positive" for bilateral ties
and an additional step towards solving the crisis.”
The muni bond market, mired in the past - (www.nytimes.com) In yet another attempt to
pull this market into modern times, regulators put states, cities and municipal
issuers on notice three years ago. No longer would they be allowed to stint on
disclosing basic financial information — the kind that investors in, say,
public corporations, have long relied on. With an expanded and accessible Web
sitedesigned by regulators, municipal bond investors could finally
find out what was going on. Or not. Some issuers of municipal bonds don’t seem
to have gotten the message. More disturbing, regulators don’t seem to care. Consider
the West Penn Allegheny Health System, a
struggling hospital system in Pittsburgh that is one of the nation’s larger
issuers of tax-exempt debt. It sold $750 million in revenue bonds in May 2007. West
Penn has had its share of problems. It restated earnings in 2008, prompting an
inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission. (The investigation is
continuing but seems moribund.) The system’s financial standing is
deteriorating. For the nine months that ended on March 31, the most recent
figures available, West Penn Allegheny posted an operating loss of $88 million.
Its cash is dwindling: it had enough to cover 50 days of operations in the most
recent quarter.
California's
Poorest Are Getting Crushed – (www.businessinsider.com)
But the gas price nightmare
may soon be over. The average California family uses about 100 gallons of gas a
month, according to AAA's Michael Green. So with an average price of about
$4.50 a gallon, that adds up to $450 they will spend on gas, starting from last
week. "That hurts families," Green said. "They can't spend that
money on something else, it's money can't save." Spending on restaurants
and movies usually goes first, he said. And low-income families, who spend
around 10 percent of their discretionary income on gas, will be hurt hardest. The
$450 figure doesn't even include indirect costs families will pay as consumer
items become more expensive to ship, Green added.
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