TOP
STORIES:
Owning
the Empire State Building is difficult - (www.nytimes.com) On the day it opened in 1931, the Empire State Building carved out a
special place on the New York skyline, but it has also been at the center of a
succession of battles for control by equally larger-than-life figures,
including Donald J. Trump and Leona Helmsley. Now, the 102-story tower is the
prize in yet another epic battle, which will play out in court starting on
Monday. On one side are the New York real estate barons Peter L. Malkin and his
son Anthony E. Malkin, who control the landmark tower but are minority owners.
They are within a whisker of landing the deal of a lifetime, valued at $5.2
billion, that would offer to the public shares in 19 properties in the New York
area that they oversee, including the crown jewel, the Empire State Building. The
offering would catapult the Malkin family into the elite of Manhattan real
estate, valuing their stake at an estimated $730 million and installing Anthony
Malkin as chairman of a major new company, Empire State Realty Trust. But
standing in their way is an eclectic group of dissenters led by the California
businessman Richard Edelman and Andrew S. Penson, a speculative investor who
owns Grand Central Terminal. They argue that the
deal may harm the value of the investors’ shares and expose them to tax
liabilities and the vagaries of the stock market, all while enriching the
Malkins.
Tsarnaev
family received $100G in benefits - (www.bostonherald.com)
Yes, taxpayer-funding (Massachusetts and our Federal Government) gave Tsarnaev
and family over $100K+ in food stamps (SNAP), Section 8 housing and welfare
payments to help fund a terrorist attack on our own country. The Tsarnaev
family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from
more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash
and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.
“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a
person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee
today. The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House
Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and
plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to
testify. “I can assure members of the public that this committee will actively
review every single piece of information we can find because clearly the public
has a substantial right to know what benefits, if any, this family or
individuals accused of some horrific crimes were receiving,” said state Rep.
David Linsky (D-Natick), the committee’s chairman.
Cyprus bailout scrapes through island's parliament - (www.reuters.com) Cyprus's parliament approved an EU bailout on Tuesday which
will force it to wind down its second-largest bank and impose heavy losses on
uninsured depositors at another, conditions that have intensified calls from
islanders to exit the euro. With a razor-thin majority of just two votes,
lawmakers approved terms accompanying 10 billion euros ($13.18 billion)in aid
from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In a show of
hands, 29 lawmakers from the three parties in the center-right government
approved the motion, with 27 voting against. Government officials had warned
the island would fall into chaotic default, unable to pay salaries or pensions,
as early as next month without emergency funding.
Denmark Exhausts Last Stimulus Avenues as Housing Losses
Persist - (www.bloomberg.com) Denmark’s government says it has exhausted all
avenues for adding stimulus as the economy shows signs of sinking into its
third recession since the global financial crisis started. “We’ve used whatever
leeway there is,” Economy Minister Margrethe
Vestager said in a telephone interview from Copenhagen late
yesterday. “There’s no more space to stimulate the Danish economy.” Denmark’s
$300 billion economy probably contracted last
quarter, after shrinking 0.7 percent in the three months through December,
according to Danske Bank (DANSKE) A/S
and Svenska Handelsbanken AB. That would mark the nation’s third recession in less than four years,
singling Denmark out as the Scandinavian nation hardest hit by the global
financial crisis. The country has yet to surface from the fallout of a burst
housing bubble that’s sent property prices plunging more than 20 percent since
2007. The average sales price for a single-family home fell 5.9 percent in
January from a month earlier, the statistics office said April 5.
Cash for Doomed Crops Means U.S. Farmers Avoid Disaster Costs
- (www.bloomberg.com) When dry weather destroyed Leonard McKissick’s soybeans last year, U.S. government-backed
insurance paid him $40,000, the bulk of his loss. Across the Arkansas Delta
this spring, farmers such as McKissick are sowing fields that suffered the
worst drought in more than half a century. Even though crops may fail again,
landowners are shielded by taxpayers from the full burden of their bad bets.
Drought helped drive the cost of crop insurance to a record $17.2 billion,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture said April
29. The government covers more than 60 percent of payouts, spending about seven
times more than a $1.4 billion program that helps farmers adapt to climate
change. The subsidies encouraging farmers to ignore addressing extreme weather
are harder to justify when automatic budget cuts remove 5 percent from most
U.S. programs and lawmakers prepare to craft a new five-year farm law. “We have
given farmers incentives to take on more risk rather than give them an
incentive to create a permanent solution,” said Vincent Smith, a professor of agricultural
economics at Montana State University in Bozeman. “You want to move toward
programs that allow them to alleviate problems before the fact.”
Gross Says Central-Bank Policies Impose ’Haircuts’ on Investors
- (www.bloomberg.com) Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest
bond fund, said global central
bank debt purchase programs and almost-zero interest rates are bolstering
economic growth and asset prices at a cost to savers and investors. “It has
been the objective of the Fed over the past few years to make even more innovative
forms of money by supporting stock and bond prices at a cost at an ever
ascending scale,” Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook posted on
Newport Beach, California-based Pimco’s website today. “Current policies come
with cost, even as they magically float asset prices higher. Negative real
interest rates, inflation, currency devaluation, capital controls and outright
default” are among the costs, or ”haircuts” from global central banks’
unprecedented monetary stimulus. The Fed’s efforts to keep long-term interest
rates low and holding its target rate at almost zero for more than four years
has caused savers to suffer in what Gross has dubbed in the past “financial
repression,” given low returns on bank deposits and fixed-income securities.
Central-bank efforts to reflate their economies after the financial crisis have
devalued the purchasing power of currencies and investment portfolios, Gross
said.
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